When my grandmother died from a mucosal melanoma (a form of skin cancer) in 2015, I sat around with my […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
Is Pop Culture Replacing Sex Education?
According to the documentary, “Lets Talk About Sex”, 10,000 teens catch a sexually transmitted disease, 2,400 teen girls get pregnant, […]
