A Brand New Novel
Josephine Baker, the early-20th-century African-American dancer, comic, and singer–hugely famous in Paris. Did you know that she was also a spy for the French Resistance during WWII?
Callout
Tag Archives: feminism
My Body: A Lover’s Tour
It’s National Love Your Body Day, the day on which girls and women are invited to reject the media hype about how we are supposed to look — and embrace ourselves with all our lumps, bumps, scars, and flaws. I love my body, and its every aspect, from head to callused toes. My feet are …
The best way to defeat Planned Parenthood
Two questions on my mind about abortion and Planned Parenthood: 1. Some of the most outspoken opponents of abortion rights today are acting out of guilt and shame. They’ve impregnated women in the past who have then had an abortion. I know several of these men, all with multiple abortions in their histories. When they needed abortions, …
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For Me, Beyonce’s Crotch Stole the Show
I seem to be the only person in America not exulting over Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime performance featuring Beyonce’s Crotch. What? You thought it was the performer herself on the stage? Technically that is true, but, thanks to her costume’s design, the choreography, and some inventive camera angles employed during the much-lauded song-and-dance, it was …
A’isha Still Inspires Me
Here is the speech I gave on Sept. 11, 2012, at the Spokane Coeur d’Alene Woman Magazine Luncheon: “Moments,” I once wrote, “are the hinges on which the doors of the human universe swing.” I’m here to tell you about some of mine. I remember the moment I discovered A’isha bint Abi Bakr, the youngest …
Walking the Slut Walk Every Day
I’m going to miss Slut Walk Spokane today. And I feel bad about that. Because, after a lifetime of shame and denial, I would so love to march down our streets in my skimpies and proclaim myself a sexual female with pride and unabashed joy. I love sex. I enjoy it most in the context …
Does God Hate Women?
Does God hate women? I would say “no.” God is love, remember? It’s men who hate women — men who appropriate the religious beliefs of holy men (and ignore those of holy women) and, with the help of the sword and the iron fist, turn them from tools of liberation into tools of oppression.
In Denmark: Talking about free speech
Every cloud, the saying goes, has a silver lining. And so it goes with “The Jewel of Medina,” being yanked out of publication by Random House, the world’s largest English-language publisher, just months before it was scheduled to appear on bookshelves in the U.S., then being the subject of threats in Serbia and an attack …