Sonali and I sat down to discuss Hulu’s new original series Mrs. America, its eerie resemblance of today’s culture wars and why we still need an Equal Rights Amendment. Click on the image below to get in on the fun.
feminism
Feminisms in Motion at Cal Poly Pomona
Join us this Thursday for a performance by Amitis Motevalli and a reading by Jessica Hoffmann, Mia Mingus and me! Books will be on sale for $20. The gallery space on campus is beautiful and the show that’s up right now–Somewhere in Between–is incredibly moving. See you there!
Join us at Cal State LA for Feminisms in Motion
Join Daria, Jess and me for a discussion about LOUDmouth, make/shift and Feminisms in Motion. Tuesday, March 5, from 6–7 p.m at Cal State LA in the University-Student Union Los Angeles rooms.
Don’t Choke On Your Silence
Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider has sat on my shelf unread for decades. Thankfully, I picked it up last night and found these much-needed words for these times:
“We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.
The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.
New Essay: THE ORIENTALIST NARRATIVE AND ERASURE IN “WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT”
Check out my review published today by the feminist pop culture magazine Bitch. Also in its entirety below:
In 2011, The New York Times described reporter Kim Barker’s war memoir, The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as “hilarious and harrowing, witty and illuminating” and wrote that Barker “depicts herself as sort of a Tina Fey character.” Within weeks, Fey bought the book’s film rights. Fey wanted to play a strong character who excelled in a male-dominated field, to show that women can back each other in the workplace, and dedicate the work to her father, a veteran and journalist, who passed away last year. The result is Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.
The film’s trailers present the movie as a comedy a la Sisters, and although it has been dubbed a “feminist comedy,” it’s more of a dramedy with a little rom-com thrown in. While the film accomplishes Fey’s aforementioned goals, in doing so it champions a white, middle-class American feminism that sees Western women as free and other women, in this case Afghan women, as oppressed. This Orientalist storyline is not only problematic and unoriginal, it’s also dangerous as it continues to be used to justify U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and other places throughout South, Central and West Asia. (more…)
I Made the Top 25 of 2015!
The feminist magazine Bitch has announced their list of the top 25 most read articles — out of the 700+ that they published this year — and my book review “16 Writers Take on the Stigma of Not Having Kids” is on it!
Jeannie’s American Dream: My Feature Article–on Newsstands Now!
To read this article (in PDF), click here: Jeannie’s American Dream-The Assimilation of a TV Icon. It’s in the winter issue of the print magazine Bitch. Yes, that’s right, print is NOT dead. Get your copy now at your local bookstore, newsstand or on their website.
To hear me interviewed about the article on the podcast Popaganda, click here.
I look at how Jeannie, from the 1960s sitcom I Dream of Jeannie, started off as an over-the-top Arab stereotype, but over the show’s five-year run was forced to assimilate due to pressure from network executives who wanted her to be more “likeable,” i.e. American. I also break down how Orientalism helped ratings and why, even though Jeannie calls Tony “Master,” she can be read as a feminist, transgressive character.
Stephanie Abraham 