No Excuses: The 21st-Century Supercrip in Three Snapshots

black and white picture, a man standing on the right side, looking seriously, "Noah Galloway", "No Excuses"

Added on May 2, 2017 Culture

No Excuses: The 21st-Century Supercrip in Three Snapshots

In the past decade, the landscape of commercial fitness has changed drastically. It has become less dependent on stationary exercise […]

Added on October 11, 2016 Run Like a Girl

When Politics Becomes Show Business: Gracie Allen Runs for President

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Radio ratings are slipping for a pair of married comedians. They are […]

Prince playing guitar in the center, looking at the guitar, dark background

Added on April 26, 2016 Culture

Sex and the Purple Guy

Originally published by Tropics of Meta on April 21, 2016. For a generation of youth — queer and non-queer alike […]

Added on April 12, 2016 Culture

Lessons from the Funky Diabetic: Phife Dawg as Reluctant Health Rap Pioneer

Often being a hip-hop fan means learning how to deal with the sudden loss of beloved artists. It always feels […]

Added on February 4, 2016 Culture , Undergraduate Writing Series

Finding a Voice: Agency and Trans Issues

It’s Undergraduate Week at Nursing Clio! All this week we are proud to bring you amazing work written by students […]

A cartoon version of a Spiderwoman on the left, a woman mimicking Spiderwoman on the right

Added on February 2, 2016 Culture , Undergraduate Writing Series

Femme Fixation and The Male Gaze

It’s Undergraduate Week at Nursing Clio! All this week we are proud to bring you amazing work written by students […]

Added on August 18, 2015 Culture

Yes, We Should Tell about our Miscarriages on Facebook

Last week, Mark Zuckerberg joyfully announced on Facebook that he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are expecting a daughter. More […]

Added on December 9, 2014 News

Confessions of a Newborn Father: The Birth of the “Hands-on” Dad

By Ginny Engholm

A recent Vicks Nyquil commercial has a typical scenario for an advertisement set in a workplace. A clearly sick man — coughing, runny nose, the whole works — opens what looks like an office door a crack, pops his head in, and delivers the one line of the commercial: “Dave, I’m sorry to interrupt. I gotta take a sick day tomorrow.” While this might seem like a very traditional depiction of masculinity, a guy at the office asking his male boss for a day off, the ad subverts this narrative by revealing an adorable toddler standing up in his crib. The tagline of the ad — “Dads don’t take sick days. Dads take Nyquil” — makes the ad’s argument clear. A real man is one who is so dedicated to his real job — fatherhood — that he continues to parent through his colds and flus. While the idea of moms’ total and complete dedication to their roles as mothers has of course been part of our cultural understanding of motherhood for, well, forever, the shift in the past decade or so of depicting fathers as equal-opportunity martyrs, devoted to the care of their children, strikes many modern viewers as something new.