Latest Musings
Patriarchal Gatekeeping and the Media’s Failure to Report Violence Against Women and Girls, Part 2
The Human Rights Crisis the Headlines Ignore This is the second of a two-part post that forms a call to action to feminists; anti-sexual violence and anti-incest activists; social justice activists; anti-sexists; sexual violence prevention advocates; and all who are...
Patriarchal Gatekeeping and the Media’s Suppression of Violence Against Women and Girls, Part 1
This is the first of a two-part post that forms a call to action to feminists, anti-sexual violence and anti-incest activists, social justice activists, anti-sexists, sexual violence prevention advocates, feminist journalists, and all who are simply fed up with our...
The Long Shadow of “Male Standards”
Pete Hegseth’s call for “male standards” in the military echoes a far older code—one built on domination, denial, and silence. Image: Andrew Geddes in the late 1870s. From Louise Barnett, Ungentlemanly Acts: The Army’s Notorious Incest Trial (Hill and Wang,...
Incest: A (Forgotten) Feminist Issue, Part 2
This is the last of a two-part post that forms an appeal to feminists; anti-sexual violence and anti-incest activists; social justice activists; anti-sexists; sexual violence prevention advocates; and all who are simply fed up with our culture’s indifference to sexual...
Incest: A (Forgotten) Feminist Issue, Part 1
This is the first of a two-part post that forms an appeal to feminists; anti-sexual violence and anti-incest activists; social justice activists; anti-sexists; sexual violence prevention advocates; and all who are simply fed up with with our culture’s indifference to...
Penis Envy
In midlife, I became a beer drinker. This choice approved of by both my health-conscious children and even my gynecologist: “After all, it's fermented!" But after years of pints, I explained to my children that there were some nights when I just didn't want a beer; it...
“Make Yourself Smell Nice”
More than anything, my mother wanted me to be the Breck girl. Blonde, diaphanous, non-threatening, and docile; the epitome of feminine beauty. But I was dark, and so when I showed my first pimple, she rushed me to a dermatologist. He dismissed her concern about...
“Uterine Melancholy” and Other Medical Conceits
Here's a fun story you can tell at parties. One gloomy afternoon in the mythological kingdom of Argos, the virgins felt they had just had enough, enough of men's laws and their sexist attitudes, enough of their sexual violence. So they fled to the mountains and hid in...
The Hostess with the Mostest
The book I have just finished, She's Such a Liar, is not just about the institutionalized suppression of incest and patriarchy’s dependence on father-daughter incest. It’s also about our culture and two of our culture’s founding presuppositions, that of gendered...
Why I Write About Incest—The Forgotten Feminist Issue
It started this way. In graduate school, while reading a Victorian novel about a father-daughter relationship, I was surprised to discover an incest theme in the book. A quick trip to the library indicated that no other scholar had yet picked this up. Thrilled by my...
What My Grandmother’s Etiquette Lessons Taught Me About Being a Girl
When we’re young, we don’t think much about how we learn what we learn. We just learn. But while writing She’s Such A Liar: Incest, Power & Knowledge and reading about the whole structure of unequal social relations and prejudicial ideologies maintain patriarchal...
Patriarchal Gatekeeping and the Media’s Failure to Report Violence Against Women and Girls, Part 2
The Human Rights Crisis the Headlines Ignore This is the second of a two-part post that forms a call to action to feminists; anti-sexual violence and anti-incest activists; social justice activists; anti-sexists; sexual violence prevention advocates; and all who are...