Rape Culture Explained
As someone who holds a degree in Women’s Studies, I’m often asked questions by people who want to learn more about feminism/feminists. With the recent media circus over the rape convictions of two high school students in the United States, I’ve decided that handing out some definitions of rape culture – the inquiry I most [...]
Connecticut Is My Heart
At a party last night, during introductions to friends of friends, someone asked, “Where are you from?” – a pretty standard getting to know you question. When I answered, “Connecticut,” he paused, shook his head, and said, “I’m so sorry about what happened.” And I realized that, probably for the rest of our lives, people [...]
Fearing the Unknown – Studying Abroad in North African (Islamic) Countries
I remember the exact moment I told my parents I wanted to study abroad for a semester in Morocco. My mom gave me her raised-eyebrows-concerned-face and said, with no small amount of hesitation, “If that’s what you really want to do …” My dad, on the other hand, demanded to know what could be so [...]
Tears, punches and yelling: welcome to hockey
Sports are everywhere. Professional athletes are some of the most grotesquely overpaid individuals in the modern world; children everywhere idolize these individuals. Parents are endlessly encouraged to push their children into athletic endeavors. According to common lore, there are little, if any, negatives of having young children in organized sports. But, how true is this? [...]
In memoriam
. . . 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 [...]
This post is not about travel, it’s about home
Today I am having a hard time thinking about conflict resolution in Côte d’Ivoire. I spent Sunday-Tuesday in Bouaké, the stronghold of the Forces Nouvelles, a rebel group which is in the process of demobilizing. I spoke with community leaders about the process of rebuilding in a post-conflict environment, the politics of constructing a future [...]
