feminism news stories on Newser

Bloggers Give Newsweek S&M Story a Good Spanking

Neal Colgrass — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 17:14:46 CDT

Author Katie Roiphe has whipped up a storm with her Newsweek /Daily Beast cover article on submissive female sex fantasies. Roiphe's argument: "that huge numbers of women are eagerly consuming myriad and disparate fantasies of submission"—think Girls , A Dangerous Method , Fifty Shades of Grey —"at a moment when women...

Ashley Judd Takes on Puffy-Face Haters

Evann Gastaldo — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 10:56:05 CDT

Ashley Judd made a TV appearance last month looking larger than normal and with a puffier face, and the ensuing criticism of her appearance led her to write a scathing but eloquent response in the Daily Beast . Judd was on steroids due to an illness (leading some to assume her...

Phyllis Schlafly Warns Men: Don't Date Feminists

Neal Colgrass — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 18:17:23 CDT

Phyllis Schlafly's advice to young men: Don't date feminists, even though "some of them are pretty." Speaking to an all-male student crowd at The Citadel college in South Carolina this week, the so-called "godmother of conservatism" also blamed feminists for drumming up the recent contraception flap in US politics, The...

Feminist Poet Adrienne Rich Dead at 82

Rob Quinn — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 01:41:00 CDT

As a woman, a lesbian, and a Jew, Adrienne Rich felt triply excluded by society, and she used her long and influential career as a poet to fight for change. Rich, who has died from complications linked to rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 82, was one of America's best-known...

Modern Domesticity: Liberating, or a Step Back?

Neal Colgrass — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 14:58:28 CST

Peek into your neighbor's house these days and you'll find a progressive woman canning jams, baking breads, knitting, or sewing. But "my baby boomer mother does not can jam. Or bake bread. Or knit. Or sew," writes Emily Matchar in the Washington Post . "Not did my grandmother. ... My, how things...

Officials Cave to Sex Strike, Agree to Pave Road

Kevin Spak — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 12:21:08 CDT

Never doubt the transformative power of sex—or lack thereof. Local authorities today agreed to appease the women of the Colombian town of Barbacoas, who in an effort to get a road to their town paved have spent the past 38 days swearing off sex in a so-called "strike of...

SlutWalks Are the 'Future of Feminism'

John Johnson — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 17:40:11 CDT

There's no stopping SlutWalks now, and they're starting to look like the "future of feminism," writes Jessica Valenti in the Washington Post . What began as a single protest in Toronto over a police officer's safety tip—to avoid rape, don't dress like a "slut"—has morphed into "the most successful...

Why I Loved Being Called a MILF

Evann Gastaldo — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 13:00:05 CDT

Since becoming a mom, Wilson Diehl had “internalized the wildly sexist notion that moms are unsexy,” she writes on Salon . “Maybe I could be a hot 35-year-old married lady, but a hot 35-year-old married mom?” But on a ladies’ weekend in Chicago with friends, Diehl found herself “dressed in not-too-badly-baby-stained...

These 'Hard-Core Women' Are the New Feminists

Evann Gastaldo — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 16:48:05 CST

There’s a new type of feminist taking Washington by storm, though these women would never stoop to the level of actually calling themselves feminists. These are the “gun-toting, breast-feeding” supermoms who “condemn government for being a ‘nanny’ and tell men to man up,” all while being considered “hotties” by “the...