We’ve all seen the “real women” memes: “Real women have curves,” and so on. There’s been some pushing back against these ideas, which I think is useful, since holding up one category of womanhood as more “real” than another is ultimately essentializing and harmful. This intriguing blog post, Real Food, draws a parallel between the […]
April 2015
We Need to Disentangle Gender From Sex (The Case for Sex Ed Part 4)
Welcome to my blog post series making a case for sex education (you can catch up and read part 1 here, part 2 here, and part 3 here). In this post I’ll analyze how concepts of gender and sexual activity intertwine in contemporary American culture, and how accurate sex education can help.* Since I just […]
Syphilis in the Social Sciences Classroom
A lot of the work I do as a sex educator is in the college classroom. I haven’t taught a Human Sexuality class yet, or done a campus Sex Week yet, but in designing and teaching classes in anthropology, gender studies, and folklore programs, I emphasize many basic themes and topics in sex education, such as […]
Selective Applications of the Law in Indiana Part 2
As described in part 1 of this post, Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration (RFRA) law selectively grants protections to some sexual minorities but not others – and that by region, as well. In this post I’ll discuss another problematic application of the law, specifically, the feticide law affecting Purvi Patel. Indiana resident Patel was just sentenced to […]
Selective Applications of the Law in Indiana Part 1
As someone living in Indiana right now, I’ve been hit with the dual disappointment of two current events that impact women and LGBTQ minorities disproportionately. It’s especially upsetting because of the way these laws are being enacted, which is to say, selectively. First I’ll talk about RFRA, or the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (also called […]