Posts Written by Rachel

Why we all must help carry the weight

Fact: According to the NCADV, one in every four women experience domestic violence in their lifetime.

 Fact: More than three women per day lose their lives at the hands of their partners.

 Fact: An estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year.

 Fact: Almost one-third of female homicide victims that are reported in police records are killed by an intimate partner.

 Fact: Most cases of domestic violence are never reported to the police.

 Domestic Violence Fact Sheet

I’ll never forget the night I saw him hit her. I don’t remember how the fight started, the only thing I remember is standing in the kitchen doorway.

Frozen.

I’ve often been asked why feminism  is so important to me. A week ago in my journalism class, I was called out by my professor for being a champion of this cause. She said, “often times people who have experienced oppression themselves, or fought the battle for others day in and day out, are the ones who become the voices who speak from the margins.” As she spoke, I began to consider why my investment in these issues is so powerful. It was not long before it became clear to me that it is easily encompassed in one word sentences:

Frozen. Powerless. Silent. Overcome.

But, how does a person facing oppression, or powerlessness, or silence, or abuse, become empowered to speak from this marginal space? In a world that values NFL ...

RE: “Why It’s Ok to Want to be a Stay at Home Mom” OR, Let’s Change the Conversation about Feminism and Motherhood

The morning began like any other. I was sipping coffee in my living room, alternating between my Facebook news feed and the current updates on my handy New York Times news app. Suddenly, my hand froze. The familiar face of one of my most avidly conservative friends smiled back at me from her small thumbnail profile picture, and next to it read the status update:

The thing is, no matter how much we strive for it, men and women aren’t equal. We get the opportunity to be something men can never be- and that is pretty awesome.”

Feeling my feminist hackles beginning to rise, I immediately clicked on the link to the full piece on Total Sorority Move (which by the way, ...

The morning began like any other. I was sipping coffee in my living room, alternating between my Facebook news feed and the current updates on my handy New York Times news app. Suddenly, my hand froze. The ...

The Slippery Slope of “Religious” Freedom versus Human Rights

News of the result of the Burnwell v Hobby Lobby Stores case reached my ears at the worst possible moment, surrounded by staunch Republicans in the great state of South Carolina. I spent the week at home deflecting backhanded comments about those damn liberals and their slow and steady destruction of the America we know and love. With the words “THANKS OBAMA” still ringing in my ears, I find it impossible to voice my thoughts on the Hobby Lobby ruling without in some way addressing the environment I have only recently vacated.

 By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court ruled in Burnwell v Hobby Lobby Stores that, in reference to the stipulation within the Affordable Care Act that requires employers to provide health insurance coverage ...

News of the result of the Burnwell v Hobby Lobby Stores case reached my ears at the worst possible moment, surrounded by staunch Republicans in the great state of South Carolina. I spent the week at home deflecting backhanded ...

“Let’s talk about sex, baby”: Hook up culture and the beginning of open conversations about sex on campus

The night always begins innocently enough. A young, college-age girl with beautiful blonde hair and an innocent smile enters a crowded party with her group of similarly attractive young friends. Smoke clouds the air and loud music throbs from nearby speakers. Sweating, drunken bodies press together, moving to the beat of the music. For a moment, she looks afraid.

Then, a smiling boy in a fraternity jersey appears at her side, presses a beer into her hand and asks her to dance. The rest of the night is a blur of drink and laughter and a parade of faces and names she’ll never remember in the morning, and at the end of the night her friends shoo her back to his ...

The night always begins innocently enough. A young, college-age girl with beautiful blonde hair and an innocent smile enters a crowded party with her group of similarly attractive young friends. Smoke clouds the air and loud music ...

The price of equal work, unequal pay

“It’s not that I don’t want to have children, it’s that I’m afraid that I’ll never be able to afford them,” said a friend of mine a few days ago in a conversation in our Women’s and Gender Studies seminar on Mothers and Daughters. This week in class, we’ve been reading a book called The Motherhood Manifesto by Joan Blades — it’s a fabulous read I would highly recommend to any woman in America before you begin the process of family planning. Here are some things I’ve learned:

When this book was published, women…

“It’s not that I don’t want to have children, it’s that I’m afraid that I’ll never be able to afford them,” said a friend of mine a few days ago in a conversation in our Women’s and ...

Things I Wish Would End: The Approachable Feminist Movement

While perusing my favorite feminist blogs this morning over coffee, I noticed an update concerning the “Ban Bossy” campaign, a movement spearheaded by the female trifecta of Facebook COO Cheryl Sandberg, CEO of the Girl Scouts of America Anna Maria Chavez, and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

 As described on the website, banbossy.org, this campaign functions as a call for people to remove words like “bossy” from their vocabularies. Sandberg and others highlight the ways that words like these become derogatory and patronizing in their gender-specific nature, usually applied to strong women in the business world. The campaign argues that the word “bossy” is often used to undermine women of power, differentiating them from men who are simply heralded as ...

While perusing my favorite feminist blogs this morning over coffee, I noticed an update concerning the “Ban Bossy” campaign, a movement spearheaded by the female trifecta of Facebook COO Cheryl Sandberg, CEO of the Girl Scouts of ...