Nice try with Palin, John McCain
John McCain waited until after Barack Obama’s speech to make a superbly-timed announcement of his vice-presidential pick. Unfortunately for him, he undermined what were his best arguments against...
Category: Women
Election 2008: race is more than black and white
In the current American presidential election, race has become a pivotal issue. Obama is the first African American man to have a legitimate chance of becoming president of the United States. Blacks...
Gods and Nymphs: the myths and realities of modern life and love
A few months ago, I read that Russian women have lost the war against sexism, and that one of the symptoms of said defeat is the dominance of the Nymph - "a professional beauty," the ideal partner...
What now? A turn to substance for Barack Obama
With Barack the nominee, the question is: what now? In Kentucky exit polls, only 1 in 3 Clinton supporters said they would vote for Obama in the general election. About 4 in 10 said they would vote...
Two Thoughts in the Prado Museum, Madrid
I. Guards, sentries, guides, they stalk the halls like silent wraiths clad in their dead blue blazers and knee length skirts. To speak to them is to encounter monotony made woman: instructions...
Yoni is the wrong damn word: marginalization and exoticism
Why, oh, why does it have to be Yoni Ki Baat? Why? I'm South Asian, right? I'm solid South Asian. So why does it make my blood boil that South Asians are doing an adaptation of the Vagina Monologues...
Yearning for answers: fundamentalism, polygamy, and the role of women
When I heard about the raid on a fundamentalist Texas compound called Yearning for Zion, I got to thinking about polygamy (well, my initial thought was more along the lines of "wow, I really want to...
Acting Like a Rectal Polyp Does not a Feminist Statement Make
Any good idea can get hijacked for the sake of advancing asininity, and feminism is no exception. Back in college, flyers tacked up on the walls of computer labs read that "feminism is the radical...
Just shut up and drive into a wall already
Of all the indignities one has to suffer on account of being publicly female, nothing irks me quite as much as being screamed at from of passing cars. Or so is the case as of late, anyway. Harassment...
Today, the Washington Post made me gnash my teeth
Sweet Jesus, Anne Applebaum, stereotype much? Of course there were many very famous "sultry" women in the USSR - things did not begin, and end, with Stalin and Liubov Orlova (an actress from the...