Olga Dies Dreaming: A Novel by Xochitl Gonzalez (2022)

July 2017
A Polish Wake It’s a myth about motherhood, Olga felt, that the time in utero imbues mothers with a lifelong understanding of their children. Yes, they know their essences, this she didn’t doubt, but mothers are still humans who eventually form their own ideas of both who their kids ( Read more... )

O Beautiful: A Novel by Jung Yun (2021)

Chapter 14Elinor grew up in military housing. On the base in Marlow, families lived in a concrete gray apartment complex where all the living room windows faced a large interior courtyard. Whenever she and Maren followed their mother through the courtyard to go to town or the PX, Elinor felt watched by every ( Read more... )

Black No More by George S. Schuyler (1930)

Chapter ThreeDespite the coffee and cigarettes, Dr. Junius Crookman was sleepy. The responsibility, the necessity of overseeing the work of his physicians and nurses, the insistence of the newspapers and the medical profession that he reveal the secrets of his treatment and a thousand other vexatious ( Read more... )

The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan (2021)

The Conspiracy Against MenDefenders of “men’s rights” like to say that “Believe women” violates the presumption of innocence. But this is a category error. The presumption of innocence is a legal principle: it answers to our sense that it is worse, all else being equal, for the law to wrongly punish than ( Read more... )

The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan (2021)

The Right to SexIt used to be the case that if you wanted a political critique of desire, feminism was where you would turn. A few decades ago feminists were nearly alone in thinking about the way sexual desire-its objects and expressions, fetishes and fantasies-is shaped by oppression. The radical ( Read more... )

The Politics of Trauma: Somatics, Healing, and Social Justice by Staci Haines (2019)

Healing and Activism Child sexual abuse is deeply traumatizing. It is also very early training in power-over, in victim and offender, in coercion, in silencing, and in adapting to violence and domination. This is training related to all systems of oppression and ( Read more... )

The Politics of Trauma: Somatics, Healing, and Social Justice by Staci Haines (2019)

Part 3: Transforming: I, You, and We
Chapter 6: The Arc of Transformation-Overview We hold the definition of transformation as: you or we have transformed when our actions align with our values and vision, even under the same old pressures. The same old pressures ( Read more... )

Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History by Richard Thompson Ford (2021)

IntroductionThe canons of menswear dictate that a black-tie ensemble consists of a black or midnight-blue jacket with a peak lapel or shawl collar faced in satin or grosgrain, and pants with the outside seam covered by a silk or grosgrain stripe. If the jacket is ( Read more... )

Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History by Richard Thompson Ford (2021)

Part Three: Power Dressing
Chapter Ten: Slaves to Fashion?
SOUTH CAROLINA’S NEGRO ACT OF 1740 provided that

whereas, many of the slaves in this Province wear clothes much above the condition of slaves… no owner or proprietor… shall permit or suffer [any] Negro ( Read more... )

Assume Nothing: A Story of Intimate Violence by Tanya Selvaratnam (2021)

To withhold words is power. But to share our words with others, openly and honestly, is also power.
-Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds

2: EntrapHis outward-facing spirituality was a mask for the torment beneath the surface. His outward-facing feminism was a mask ( Read more... )