In 2017, Merriam-Webster named “feminism” the word of the year. The dictionary’s choice was driven by the increase in interest in feminism during coverage of the Women’s March in January, along with discussions about what feminism means throughout the year, and driven by politics, pop culture, and movements such as #MeToo, where a number of women and men spoke out about their experiences of sexual assault and harassment in Hollywood and beyond. At its core, feminism is about

Sojourner Truth, a civil and women's rights activist, delivered a speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in 1851 that has come to be known as, “Ain’t I a Woman?” In her address, Truth pointed out the inconsistency of claiming that women were physically inferior to men when female slaves were forced to do backbreaking labor that was supposedly “men’s work.” Truth not only critiqued both racism and sexism in one speech, but she also did so through connecting these two for

When the reboot of the 1980’s classic Ghostbusters was announced last year, the backlash was immediate. Many proclaimed that this remake would “ruin their childhood,” in large part because the main characters in the 2016 version are all women. The trailer for the movie is the most disliked video on YouTube, thanks to a coordinated campaign by Men’s Rights Activists to slam the film. But for one of the movie’s stars, Leslie Jones, the criticism has taken an especially hatef

During the spring semester of 2014, I taught Introduction to Gender and Women’s Studies. I had twenty-four students; only four of them were men. This semester I am teaching a course on feminist theory. I have fourteen students, none of whom are men. Also, our feminist collective meetings on campus are seldom attended by men, although several men have taken a positive interest in our collective’s Facebook page. While it is understandable that women would be attentive to women’