Inspired by the “I am a ____ in a movie” phenomenon on Twitter where people in different professions tweeted the unrealistic portrayals of their professions on the big screen. I am a professor in a movie. I enter a college classroom on the first day. The classroom is filled with first-generation college students with few… Read more →
Tag: Class
Prison Cells and Pretty Walls: Gender Coding and American Schools
A few months ago, I was scrolling through Twitter and saw a conversation about redesigning classroom spaces and a phrase caught my attention: “redesign is NOT about being pretty for Pinterest.” As someone interested in the dynamics of gender in education, especially in history, it gave me pause. That the users of the phrase were… Read more →
UK Squatters’ Fight for Decent Housing
The topic of squatting — living in or using a dwelling without the owner’s permission — often elicits condemnation from the well-housed, confusion or fear from those who consider modern civilized life to revolve around a stable and secure home, and a general attitude that only dirty hippies would resort to essentially living illegally and… Read more →
We Can Do Better Than the Suffragists
How many references to suffragists have you seen in the news lately? In April, the US Treasury announced that five suffragists will appear on the back of the new ten-dollar bill. Three months later, Hillary Clinton wore a white pantsuit — a reference to the suffragists’ white dresses — to become the first female presidential… Read more →
Disproving Self-Indulgence: Congenital Addiction in the Early Twentieth Century
On October 10, 1989, police arrived at the Medical University of South Carolina. They handcuffed Lori Griffin, a black girl not yet eighteen, and arrested her for distributing cocaine to a minor. That minor was her newborn child — distribution took place through the placenta. The police came because Lori’s urine had tested positive for… Read more →
“Why does Congress wish to have mothers and babies die?”
It takes a rare political personality to gain regular air-time on today’s political pundit shows. Former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner is one of those personalities. If anyone is going to grab precious minutes on air it’s Turner, a politician who wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “GOP — Get Out of My Panties”… Read more →
Mommy Wars of Yore: Classism and its Casualties
Most of us are familiar with the Mommy Wars. The Internet is the battlefield, and woman is pitted against woman in a ruthless competition to out-mother each other by breastfeeding longer, Pinteresting better, and home birthing harder. Critics point out that mothers are feeling more pressure than ever before to be certain kinds of mothers, and… Read more →