It Takes Two
Since five minutes after Marvin proposed, people have been asking me wedding details. I remember calling one of my friends with the ring freshly placed on my finger. “Congratulations!!!” she exclaimed. “So, where are you going to have it?” I hadn’t even had a chance to sit down yet, and I was already being asked what my plans were. Though the stigma is that many women have been planning their weddings since age 5 and... Read More
Istanbul: Fascinating, Ancient, and Male
Being plagued with a nasty bought of jetlag did not minimize the awe effects of the old city of Istanbul. We arrived bleary-eyed at Atatürk Airport, having bounced through Germany for a couple of days between Seattle and Istanbul, a 10 hour time zone difference. Upon arrival we took the well-established public transportation to our hotel, located in the old town, a mere half kilometer from both the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque. After dropping... Read More
In memoriam
. . . Memorial to the Montreal Massacre, from http://media.mmgdailies.topscms.com On this day in 1989, a 25-year-old man named Marc Lépine was angry. He had been rejected yet again from the École Polytechnique, an engineering school in Montreal, and blamed feminist affirmative action for filling “his” slot with less-qualified female students. In the space of about twenty minutes, he went through the school with a semi-automatic... Read More
Les implications de la langue, or how I learned to obsess about language
People used to ask if I'd read the dictionary... Note: this article is also posted on Not Another Wave. A few years ago, a friend and I were talking about language and gender balances. I don’t remember how we got on that subject, except we were both undergraduate English majors and this was normal for us. At any rate, he brought up the word brethren: what, he asked, would be its feminine counterpart? Even today, I’m still stumped.... Read More
Redefining Feminism
Gender equality for all, as drawn by bluecanary.deviantart.com. Feminism has a very long and convoluted history around the world. It connotes a broad variety of political values and social causes, often differing from one self-proclaimed feminist to the next, and when someone refuses that label, the reasons are often equally complex. The most basic definition of feminism, the one that tends to appeal to the broadest group of people, is that feminism... Read More
Blondes Have More Fun?
Thanks to the good people at Mattel for making the lives of blondes everywhere a little more complicated. As a young, blonde woman, I get attention from sleazy men everywhere. I’ve been whistled at my whole life, and I’ve tended to take it as a compliment—well, a creepy, unwanted compliment. In Beirut, Lebanon, things are no different. On my way to the store today I must have gotten four “Oh-my-God!”s, kissing sounds, or whistles in the... Read More
Between Worlds
For the longest time I could not decide what to write about this week. I’ve settled into life as an intern in New York City pretty well and I felt that another post about food in the city would be a tad silly. So I had decided upon writing about the subway and some hilarious stories but then I read one of my friend’s comments about appreciating moments when you’re in a room full of female scientists because they’re rare. And... Read More
Bodies
Why do we alienate ourselves so much from our bodies? It’s that big piece of machinery attached to your head. ~Carrie Latet My body took me up a 14,000-foot mountain the other day. Female bodies are the subject of constant, and often contradictory, messages about what they can and cannot do: They’re too weak to run a marathon or lift dumbbells, but all-powerful when birthing a child. Pregnant bodies are too weak to carry a bag full... Read More
Go, Girl, Go
The original GoGirl logo, taken by Beth in Portugal. “It is confidence in our bodies, minds and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures, new directions to grow in, and new lessons to learn – which is what life is all about.” -Oprah Simone de Beauvoir once wrote that “women are not born, but made.” What she meant when she said this was that the gendered traits most often associated with women- how they... Read More
The Push to Be White
One of the many plastic surgery ads in the Seoul subway. Comparing a woman's face to a slice of bread or a football isn't exactly a positive message to send to our youth... I faced the camera with the air of someone awaiting a root canal. Always preferring to be behind the lens rather than in front of it, and liking to capture the spontaneity of life in my pictures, I loathe posting for photographs. As I stared down the photographer,... Read More
