gender

Dear Ijeawele begins with a young, new mother's question: "How might I raise my daughter to be a feminist?" This slim book is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's letter of response, acting as an encouraging and thoughtful manifesto for feminism, in fifteen funny, compassionate, and observant suggestions for loving empowerment.

Oh, I love this book, this essay, this letter. So well articulated, Adichie's work is quick and easy to read and underline. 



I am in my twenties, and it's not that I am planning on raising a girl any time soon, but it is that I am continually raising myself as a female within

It’s my turn to come out of the closet: I am a literature snob. I generally hide my inclination since I work at a public library where great works of literature often acquire dust while hundreds of people wait for trendier, lighter works. It’s a self-directed snobbishness—I appreciate that reading taste is subjective so I don’t judge others for what they like.

Part of my job is to become familiar with various genres I don’t normally read. Four years ago I set a goal to read a comic book, or what us snooty types call “graphic literature”. I just met my goal this month. Art history was one of

Elizabeth Reis, Associate Professor in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program and the History Department at the University of Oregon, shines a bright light into a dark alley in the history of American medicine.  The question for medical professionals: how to treat intersex patients, or, in other words, hermaphrodites—patients with ambiguous anatomical and physiological sexual identities.  Reis’s medical history starts at the beginning of American medicine where hermaphrodites were looked upon as monstrosities of nature, perhaps even a judgment of God for some kind of sexual perversion.  Later