When we frst decided on Unravel as a theme in the winter, we had little idea how prescient it would ultimately be. Yet Unravel has become a culmination of our desire for artistic creation in a time of seeming political destruction. How do we make sense of our identities during heightened oppression through a feminist lens? How do we experience fber arts, poetry, and music as an avenue of emotional release and empowerment?
In this time of massive political unraveling, the theme has granted us time to step back and examine the details of both our tumultuous national circumstances and our own complex identities. In this issue, we disentangle topics from living with disability to reproductive justice and eating disorders, teasing out the fabric of recurrent struggles through the lens of our identities. Unravel reminds us that both our political cycles and our lives are cycles of knowing and not knowing and that understanding ourselves is a circle of tangling and unraveling.
We hope that in reading this edition, you fnd solace in our collective unraveling and tangling; that in immersing ourselves in the recurrent nature of this process we can learn to appreciate the beauty of discovery within times of turbulence.
With love,
Aditi Singh, Claire Kovac, Eda Naz Gokdemir and Harmony Wilson 25 W/S Writing Leads
2025 spare rib mission statement
Te Spare Rib newspaper was frst published in 1992 to highlight women’s accomplishments and persisting problems in the two decades following co-education at Dartmouth. For reasons we are still working to discover, the original Spare Rib went out of print after a few years. Tirty years later, our goal refects a movement that hasevolved considerably since 1995. We are re-establishing Spare Rib to d iscuss struggles, achievements, and history of people and places beyond the center, hindered (but not constrained) by racism, classism, sexism and further means of oppression, through analysis, humor, and critique. Our struggles deserve recognition, our perspectives deserve to be voiced, and our strengths deserve to be celebrated.
thename“spare rib”
As written in the second chapter of Genesis, God took a rib from Adam, the frst man, and from it fashioned Eve, the frst woman, to serve as his companion. We propose a diferent origin story, in which no one is merely a piece of fesh, secondthought, servile, or spare.
statement against colonial exploitation
In accordance with Spare Rib’s values and mission, we want to bring attention to the land on which we stand, its history, and its original peoples. More than a land acknowledgement, this is a statement against a historical injustice. Tis is a historical demand and a material necessity that has been brewing for over fve centuries. Dartmouth College is a settler-colonial, patriarchal, bourgeois institution, founded on the eve of the American revolution. It is thus profoundly entangled with the settler-colonial project. Tis institution stands on unceded, continually-occupied Abenaki territory and within the wider Turtle Island, lands currently under the violent, fascistic military occupation of the Euro-American settler regime. Tese lands have seen genocide, warfare, and plagues, which have decimated most of its original inhabitants. Tey have seen treaties ignored and broken, cultures and languages forcibly erased, and entire populations displaced. Indigenous peoples remain here, standing proud and resolute, in love, community, and joy, awaiting the new dawn to come.
Now more than ever, Spare Rib assumes the historical duty to stand in solidarity and dedicate ourselves to a genuine end of colonial injustice. Spare Rib stands for a return of the land, people’s government, and Indigenous self-determination. Tis statement is a new beginning for our eforts for Indigenous justice and autonomy —this is not the end. As we move forward, we devote ou selves to a future of collective liberation for all oppressed peoples.
land acknowledgement
Spare Rib was created by students at Dartmouth College, a school built on unceded Abenaki land that, to this day, prospers of of Indigenous trauma. Settler-colonial exploitation is ongoing, complex, and dama ing to all, and Spare Rib aims to acknowledge the privileges and exploitation we take part in within society— devoting ourselves to honoring Indigenous peoples and allies around the world that fought and co tinue to fght for a more equitable and inclusive future. We will continue to voice our support and encourage others to educate themselvesand learn about Indigenous issues and identities.
disclaimer
Te views and opinions expressed in Spare Rib are those of individual authors and not necessarily refective of the zine, writers, or staf as a whole, nor represented as wholly complete or correct information, nor intended to disparage any group or individual.
Suillus luteus (Slippery Jack)
Pattern Info:
Hook Size: 4-5 mm (I used 5 mm but depends on your yarn)
Yarn Size: Weight 4, can use thinner or thicker to increase/decrease size of mushroom!
Pattern:
R1: ch 10, turning ch, sc in each st
R2-5 sc in each st
Fold rectangle in half and slst together to form stipe in BLO.
Cap:
R1: MR, 6 sc. slst in frst st
R2: inc in every stitch
R3: inc in every other stitch
R4: inc in 1 stitch, skip 2, inc
R5: sc all the way around Fasten of
Pore surface (A.K.A. bottom of cap)
R8: MR, 6 sc, slst in frst st
R2: inc all around R3: inc in every other stitch Fasten of. Leave long tail to attach to the top of mushroom.
Sew bottom of cap to the top, stufng lightly so that the bottom part stays fat (see picture). Tere are more stitches on the top part of the cap, so you will need to skip every other stitch or so (doesn’t have to be super precise).
Attach cap to stipe in preferred way (I just sewed it on with yarn needle). I also sewed the bottom of the stipe shut but that is optional. Weave ends.
Pattern Info:
Hypomyces lactifuorum
(Lobster Mushroom)
Hook Size: 4-5 mm (I used 5 mm but can adjust to yarn thickness)
Yarn Size: Weight 4, can use thinner or thicker to increase/decrease size of mushroom.
Pattern:
R1: MR, SC 6 , slst in frst st
R2: inc, slst in frst st
R3: BLO sc all around (no inc)
R4-7 : sc all around Fasten of.
Using a yarn needle, use the leftover string from the MR or another piece of yarn to crisscross through the stipe of the mushroom so that it is more secure.
I wish I could crochet.
Make something beautiful of this balled up thread of me.
Arrange myself graceful
Understand, untangle
What’s wrapped around my throat
What makes me immobile.
But I’m unfocused:
Twister, take me:
On the exhale there’s
An indigo storm in the bitter cold
And I’m swept beyond my own breath
God, this thread is too thick
To even force through brittle fngers
It’s knotted and rainbow and I don’t know how to move it
So I stare:
To pull from the center would knot me up even more I’d destroy everything in desperation
What am I supposed to do, then?
How to unravel me?
16 came and went
With it my innocence
Oh, confdence
Come back and burn me red
-Sometimes I think I could rip apart a cloud like cotton-
Rotten and frayed and molded green
My edges are raw.
“But what if I’m not happy just yet? Is that okay?”
So I remember my story.
Te back-breaking work my parents endure (their shitty pay, the holes in their clothes, their permanently tired bodies)
And the expectant look in their eyes.
Tey think I’m doing great.
“Here we can put an important quotes that desrves to be in big text.”
I have no right to complain.
HowIwishwecouldswitchplaces, ifonlyforaday.
After all, I am living my dream. Didn’t I wish on many stars for the chance to be here?
ButwhatifI’mnothappyjust yet?Isthatokay?
I can only succeed
Tere is no other option.
I am earning the education my ancestors deserved. So I push all my worries aside With the promise that I’ll let myself grieve tomorrow but probably not.
mentum odio. Quis eleifend quam adipiscing vitae proin. Felis bibendum ut tristique et egestas quis ipsum suspendisse. Augue neque gravida in fermentum et. Nisl nunc mi ipsum faucibus vitae aliquet. Amet mauris commodo quis imperdiet massa tincidunt. Tristique et egestas quis ipsum suspendisse ultrices. Feugiat nibh sed pulvinar proin gravida hendrerit lectus a. Diam sit amet nisl suscipit adipiscing. Risus pretium quam vulputate dignissim suspendisse in. Ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur.
ultrices. Feugiat nibh sed pulvinar proin gravida hendrerit lectus a. Diam sit amet nisl suscipit adipiscing. Risus pretium quam vulputate dignissim suspendisse in. Ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur.
Ornare arcu odio ut sem nulla. Id porta nibh venenatis cras sed felis. Erat imperdiet sed euismod nisi porta lorem. Luctus venenatis lectus magna fringilla urna porttitor rhoncus doloisus nec. Quis vel eros donec ac odio tempor. Auctor urna nunc id cursus. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et. Ac turpis egestas maecenas pharetra. Suspendisse faucibus interdum posuere lorem ipsum. Erat velit scelerisque in dictum. Fermentum et sollicitudin ac orci phasellus egestas tellus rutrum. Arcu dui vivamus arcu felis bibendum ut. Eget nulla facilisi etiam dignissim diam. Fermentum posuere urna nec tincidunt praesent semper feugiat nibh sed. Amet volutpat consequat mauris nunc congue.
Yet my desk exposes me for who I am.
Riddled with half-fnished cofee cups, motivational sticky notes, and scattered papers,
It is obvious that I struggle to keep up with the Dartmouth mentality. Sometimes I think I’m too weak to be here
Other times I pride myself for long study stretches in Tower.
Ornare arcu odio ut sem nulla. Id porta nibh venenatis cras sed felis. Erat imperdiet sed euismod nisi porta lorem. Luctus venenatis lectus magna fringilla urna porttitor rhoncus dolor. Sed ullamcorper morbi tincidunt ornare. Eu non diam phasellus vestibulum. Aliquet eget sit amet tellus cras adipiscing. Odio tempor orci dapibus ultrices in. Massa massa ultricies mi quis. Morbi enim nunc faucibus a pellentesque sit amet porttitor. Ultrices vitae auctor eu augue ut. Nulla aliquet porttitor lacus luctus accumsan. Proin sagittis nisl rhoncus mattis rhoncus
Either way I’m fated to agonize in the abyss of
Dedication.
For it is only in there that I know who I am
And what am I if not resilient
Tincidunt tortor aliquam nulla facilisi cras fer-
The Texas I'm Proud to be From
By: Anonymous
When I see the news headlines, my palms become drenched in sweat, and I feel a piercing sense of self-doubt for choosing to embrace a brimming hope for the future of the Lone Star State: for the place I was born and grew up in and for the place I call home. I’ll ad mit, more often than not, I cynically believe that the Texas political landscape will never change.
I was raised in Texas: a state full of history and culture. I was also raised to always look for the lights of optimism and progress. Yet, I’m hesitant to embrace these very identities because…
I’m a woman, yet, I don’t feel my state can protect my right to healthcare. Texans’ rights and autonomy are actively being stripped, invaded, and robbed. I feel guilty for being proud to be a Texan because of the damage its gov ernment has done and pain it’s inflicted upon the lives
Often, I lose feeling, my hands numb, my heart heavy: a crippling feeling of fear looms over me as I navigate what I’d do in a hypothetical situation where I’d need reproductive healthcare but could not receive it without facing legal consequences. It is horrifying — the sharp pain of anxiety that comes from not being able to have control over your life or future.
Art by: Denisse Gonzalez-Marquez
Design by: Lillia Hammond
Indeed, politics is personal, and so is the policy that is attached to it. Politicians in Texas need to see this and truly internalize vulnerable stories that THEIR constituents have courageously told, and understand that their votes and actions truly do impact the individuals who elected them into the very position of power they hold.
I have, however, begun to further believe in the power of change and collective action through advocacy and mobilization.
As I grow older, I become a bit more hopeful that the metamorphosis of a Texas that’s truly for the people is in the near future because of increased advocacy. I long, at the very least, to peel back the ancient layers of Texas.
The incredible advocates I’ve met from my home, the brave stories they’ve shared, and the drive many progressive youth have to create a Texas that’s truly for the people, not the power, is what brightens my light.
This is the Texas I feel proud to be from.
My Brief but Struggling Love Stories
By: Anonymous
Art by: Anonymous
Design by: Denisse Gonzalez-Marquez
Dear Jo (archived)
Te valley we went to for last week’s school trip reminded me of somewhere very familiar. Te clif crevice where you fell of and left us. It has been like 3 years? or 5 years. I couldn’t quite remember. I remember you being very critical of my nonchalant feelings, and I hope you were no longer mad at me for not crying too hard at your memorial- where it had only me and our softball coach. You complained a lot about our school having only women’s softball but not baseball. Unfortunately, I am still on the school softball team.
Reality has been a bit underwhelming for me recently, as you would imagine- school, work, practice...and over and over again. It might not seem like anything special but— I just gave up on someone I secretly love. My pity party was to go straight into the convenience store near my home and buy the rice balls we both used to like a lot- the tuna mayonnaise favor(the cooked one, not the raw one). I remember that it used to be our late night treat after softball practice. which reminded me of you. It is late November in Atlanta. I still wear shorts. I’m surprised that I have become resistant to the cold this year. And I no longer binge eat cookies whenever I have a crush on someone, which is relieving news.
I have had unfulflled love for women. Just like I have had unfulflled love for skateboarding, ice skating, and “the All Japan Volleyball High School Championship” that you promised to watch with me.
You knew I could be happily alone. I am actually smirkingly, happily alone. But I will be happier if I am no longer confused by who I am-my identities and all. I wish I didn’t hesitate to buy one of those cute pride badges in the bookstore in Taipei. I wish I could fnd a label to describe my sexuality-to all of the people I secretly had a crush on, I couldn’t fnd a unifed word to describe them. But as I told you- and you knew this all along- I don’t wish to be defned.
Tere has been a vague sense of unease—some inexplicable, subtle stings that are light, occasional, and inconspicuous, to the point where these feelings are hard to notice. I have been wondering for a long time if it is hard to remain a feminist in a heterosexual relationship. Because, unlike you, I know nothing about sex, about whether I should be happy to be pleased and to receive compliments about my body and femininity. Whether I should like women, or men, or any genders. Whether I can love myself at the same time when I fall in love with others. But maybe—just maybe—I would be happier if I were less of a feminist.
I wrote about unreciprocated love on my diary the other day, and I copy here hoping to receive your genuine feedback (I know you are a really good writer):
I wouldn’t cry as much anymore. But sadness crept in when I was waiting in line while silently telling myself not to cry. Sadness prompted me to open my unrequited love playlist on Spotify. But how could something that never happened be called a loss?
I was still acting so nonchalant that my friends even complimented me. Can I love myself? My sadness. My unseen struggle for self-recognition. And those pages of Last Words from Montmartre I fipped through but couldn’t bring myself to read further. I wish I could stop looking for resonance in novels and stories about love that isn’t openly reciprocated. I wish I would never write the way I am writing right now.
Tat being said, though, I probably won’t talk about love anymore after this letter. Maybe I’m just hyper-alert to the norms and discourse of any human relationships, to expectations of who I should love and hate, and how I should
be perceived by myself and others. But in truth, I also wish I could feel that same sense of entitlement as most people do- other than you. Tat way, we would be free. Perhaps one condition of love is the relinquishing of power. And because of that, I feel exhausted.
–It’s been so long. How are things going for you? Last time you told me you were bikepacking on the Arizona Trail. Or Arcadia? Because I couldn’t fnd anywhere on the map that says the specifc place where you took the picture. (I should probably stop right here, because my mother was frantic when I was writing this letter to you late at night.) I don’t know when and how you will receive this, but I am just writing to let you know that I am much more happily alive right now, and please do reply so that I don’t forget about you.
Yours and mine, Jo.
less anxious? [catching breath] I was actually dancing—you wouldn’t believe how relaxing all of this is. You should come. Come and dance with me. And we can shoot a video of us dancing.
[sound of waves]
[Recording—Untitled 2023/11/22]
Hi Jo! I’m at the sea right now— [sound of wind in the background]
I hope the wind doesn’t blur my voice too much. I’m standing on the beach. Feeling the waves lapping my feet. Te freeness!
I really wish you were here! [Silence for a second- sound of steady wind]
Te wind is so strong—I can feel it rushing through me. I also brought…
[people running and passing by; laughing and talking] Also, Jo, did you know that running barefoot can make you
You know what- Let’s wear dresses. Let’s let our hair go completely wild. Let’s get a tattoo. Just the two of us! And we should hug! And we should kiss! I want to kiss you. I really do.
Dear Jo,
Tis is probably the last time I’ll write to you. But do not worry!you can fnd me anywhere by the sea. Or I could be reading a book by Charles River. Or just picking up cobblestones at a random place on earth. I could probably bike the Arizona trail- just like you did! You will not lose sight of me. I promise.
Last time, you told me to read more books and watch more movies. You told me, and here I quote, “Falling for someone is falling for a narrative- its meaning, its cadence. And perhaps, you should immerse yourself in diferent new narratives, and wash it away like tears in the rain. But there is a sorrow in this-a quiet, helpless grief.”
Tank you for telling me that. Tank you for acknowledging my sadness. It helped me a lot to get over my unreciprocated feelings at the time. Tough I haven’t yet settled, I now gradually fnd peace with whom I choose to love. I am comfortable just loving the people I love, and putting aside identities for a bit to gleefully enjoy myself.
Now I’m busy rebuilding the crumbled past and mapping out what’s yet to come. So I guess- A toast to growth- to both of us!~ Miss and love you lots! But please don’t stop and wait for me. At the same time, I hope you are also on a great journey!
Love, Jo.
but I wanted to ask So why do I still hurt so badly?
We live in a culture that equates wellness with micro, finite acts of physical or emotional tending. is is a function of capitalism. Neoliberalism, the political and economic project characterized by free markets that emerged in the United States in the 1970s, depends on the “‘commodification of everything,’ not only [by] making markets for things that were once held in common (the new enclosures), but also [by] creating needs and desires where none previously existed.”2 e neoliberal economy wants to sell us wellness—or more specifically, sell us things we don’t need under the auspices that they will make us happier and healthier, or make the breakneck pace of life under capitalism a little more bearable. “Self care” has come to mean the small things we do or buy to try to address the symptoms—loneliness, detachment, physical neglect, and pain—that result from the economic and cultural systems under which we live.
is mystery illness—likely some understudied, COVID-19 induced, inflammatory autoimmune condition—has erodes my belief in what “self care” can actually accomplish. No amount of tea or painkillers or naps can fix what is wrong with my body. I don’t want a college-branded fidget toy or another meditation app. I want an accessible campus. I want the elevator to work. I want the access van to stop dropping my scheduled rides. I want my health insurance to stop telling me I need to drive an hour and a half for in-network acupuncture. I want to stay home on the days I hurt the most, without worrying about the consequences to my grades or my professor’s view of my diligence.
Pain is radicalizing. Coming up against the limits of self care has helped me see that real solution to the harmful systems we face—disabled and non-disabled folks alike—is to reimagine and transform those systems.
One of the first people to write about radical self care was Black feminist activist Audre Lorde. Lorde’s self care is a far cry from what we commonly understand it as today. In “A Burst of Light,” an essay of collected journal entries about living with cancer, Lorde writes, “I had to examine, in my dreams as well as in my immune-function tests, the devastating effects of overextensions. Overextending myself is not stretching myself. I had to accept how difficult it is to monitor the different. [...] Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”3
Lorde’s definition encapsulates much of what I’ve experienced lately. Self care isn’t an indulgence. It’s the things I do so I can make it to class, or to work, or to the organizing meeting. It’s what I do so I don’t entirely succumb to the mental toll of losing my ability to do many of the things I love. It’s what I do to make it out of bed in the morning, and what I do when even that feels impossible. I feel like a fish on ice. Self care will not bring me back to life, but it might stop the decay for a while.
Community Care is Power
Neoliberal capitalism often strips out mechanisms for meeting needs that were historically rooted in community or commons. ink about, for example, the way colonialism and the medical industrial complex have suppressed community knowledge of medicinal herbs, and restricted access to land on which to forage them. Or the way that our busy, disconnected lives make it hard to slow down and care for a loved one who gets sick without financial, social, or employment stress.
I talk a lot about care, specifically community care, and even more specifically, the sort of caring community we’ve built in Spare Rib. Over the past four years, I’ve watched the space blossom into one of deep and radical care. Sometimes that looks like bringing a sick spribber food, tea, and medicine for days in a row. Sometimes, it’s checking in on someone who has missed deadlines in a way that is humanizing and prioritizes their mental health. It’s the way we have a bin of communal tylenol and tampons and laundry soap in our office. It looks like greeting new faces in our space and having an older member check in to learn their names and get them onboarded. Sometimes it’s just feeding people
Grief, Care, Connection
In Old English, care meant to sorrow, to grieve, to lament. A secondary meaning was to be anxious, or to feel concern.7 e more current definition—“To have a regard, liking, or inclination” for something—has lost so much depth.
I grieve the energy and capacity I had before chronic illness. I lament the things I loved to do but now may never be able to do.
I feel anxious about the prospect of finding a job and building a sustainable life in this new body of mine. I feel anxious about cuts to public assistance programs for disabled people, about the corporate nature of health insurance in this country, about the dearth of true care within the medical industrial complex.
I feel concern about the state of our world. About the rise of facism in the U.S. and abroad that aims to squash the rights of disabled people. I dread the next pandemic, the avian flu, the coming undervaccination and resurgence of deadly but preventable diseases that would certainly make my current medical conditions even more precarious. I dread the climate disaster we have inherited, that we will live and breathe for the rest of our lives, that disables and then creates conditions that disabled people must struggle to survive.
I cried while writing this article.
It was the first time I’ve ever cried while writing for Spare Rib. I’ve put the full extent of my body’s collapse into writing, and it hit me hard. I am resilient and tough, but I’m not unbreakable.
I cry. I worry. I lament. I grieve. And I care.
e radical care I have embraced as my body breaks down has deepened my commitment to our global movement for justice.
Writing on what becoming disabled has taught them, disability justice theorist Joanna Hedva writes “[...] disability makes it impossible to ignore that we are ontologically dependent, knotted into each other and everything.”8 (6).
I have found this true as well. I have been thrust somewhat rapidly and violently into a dysfunctional body, catalyzed by a pandemic everyone stopped taking seriously. I cannot help but draw links between the little disaster of my body and the much larger disasters occurring globally. I can’t help but think of the people in Occupied Palestine who are intentionally maimed by Israeli snipers because imposed debility takes away scrutiny from the State of Israel by lowering the death count while simultaneously limiting people’s ability to resist the occupation and tying them into a profit-driven medical system, often forever.9 I cannot help think about the disabled folks trapped in hurricane flooding or wildfire smoke, unable to evacuate on their own. I think about the people who have lost or are about to lose their access to healthcare due to Trump’s shuttering of USAID and Congress’s drastic proposed cuts to Medicaid.
All of these things are connected. And yes, I’m going to talk about capitalism again, and care. Because undergirding each of these disabling events— Covid-19, occupation and genocide, escalating natural disasters due to climate change, and cuts to life sustaining programs—is a focus on profit and power over community and care. As Hedva puts it, “[...] to stay alive, capitalism cannot be responsible for our care—its logic of exploitation requires that some of us die. For capitalism to support care would be the end of capitalism.”10 is is a bold thought, and one sparkling with potential.
What would it look like to not leave anyone behind? To not feed anyone to the machine of production & productivity & “worth”? To find ways to mitigate suffering and pain?
If we lean into care in our communities and systems, can we start to slowly defang capitalism, ableism, and all the other forms of oppression that threaten our destruction?
2.Julie Guthman, “Neoliberalism and the Constitution of Contemporary Bodies,” Studies Reader ed. Esther Rothblum and Sondra Solovay, 187-196. New York, USA: New York University Press, 2009. https://doi.org/10.18574/ nyu/9780814777435.003.0026
3.Audre Lorde, “A Burst of Light: Living with Cancer,” in A Burst of Light and Other Essays, Ixia Press, 2017. ISBN 9780486818993.
4.See Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower, 1993.
5.“Recognizing abundance rather than scarcity undermines an economy that thrives by creating unmet desires.” Robin Wall Kimmerer, “Allegiance To Gratitude,” in Braiding Sweetgrass, Milkweed Editions, 2013, page 111.
6.Seeds for Change, “What is Direct Action?” https://www.seedsforchange.org.uk/directaction
7.Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “care (v.),” June 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/9286555014.
8.Joanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die, Hillman Grad Books, 2024, page 6.
9.Jasbir Puar, ““Will Not Let Die”: Debilitation and Inhuman Biopolitics in Palestine,” e Right To Maim, Duke University Press, 2017.
10.Hedva, How to Tell, 56.
Whether you're a writer, artist, designer, or just want to hang out, we want you in our community!
Open to folks of all genders and backgrounds!
Snap away at my seams, unravel me one stitch at a time. Dig your nails inside my chest, press your fngertips into the fesh above my sternum. Crack my rib cage in two — corporate machine distorting human bodies, metal snapping a lobster shell you can’t wait to devour.
My veins run thick with the red nail polish I paint over every other morning. Pull them from beneath my skin unwind my body, declutter my soul. Rip them out, those unwelcome cypress knees in a marsh of exploitation
You watch
the explosion of scarlet stuffing erupt from my body —
Threads of Self
By: Harmony Wilson Art by: Geena San Diego
Te room was packed with about seventy other black and brown women mingling awkwardly. Some knew each other, most didn’t. I didn’t know anyone. Social anxiety at an all time high, I tried to keep away from as many people as possible. I knew other people were as uncomfortable as I was and it made me even more uncomfortable. We all wandered around, eventually foating into uneven lines for the charcuterie boards. I remember not having eaten the entire day and feeling anxious to leave. Maybe Women of Distinction was the wrong decision for me.
I placed my stuf down at the table that had the least people, one that thankfully, held people that I felt a little comfortable having casual conversations with.
“Okay, ladies! Time to settle into your seats!” an older, maybe middle-aged, white woman shouted into the crowd. Everyone shufed towards the tables that they belonged to, seemingly more comfortable than when we walked in. Te woman told us her name and began to talk about her experience in whatever position she held at Smith College, then invited the staf to briefy introduce themselves as well. After all of the staf went around and shared their names, pronouns, and hometowns, they started going around with the girls. Slowly but surely, the other WODies began to share their names, pronouns, and hometowns.
I began to further dread my choice to travel across state lines — for free, admittedly — to visit this school. Was I even interested enough in this school to attend? Did I really want to meet new people? Was I ready for this stage of my life? Te questions continued to pour in as the girls all shared who they are. Emily, she/her from Texas. Roselyn, she/her from New York. She/her, she/her, she/her. What are my pronouns?
Te
minutes broke into their second counterparts as everyone at my table shared. One name after the next, as my
“Hi, my name is Harmony, I’m from Brooklyn, New ere was silence and anticipation. I looked around and then looked down at my hands. I picked at
DiegoDesign by: Rachel Roncka
Pronouns were something that I had been trying to understand for a long time. When the concept of pronouns reached TikTok, I began to question mine. I never felt fully feminine, fully masculine. Tere were days where I felt both, days I felt neither, days I felt one or the other. Was I really comfortable explaining that to this crowd of women? Did they understand? Was I an imposter?
ere was resounding silence within the room for a short yet uncomfortable amount of time, almost like we had all froze in time in response. I never wanted to share it with anyone again.
And I didn’t. Not for a long time. roughout the rest of my senior year, I continued to question my gender identity and explore diferent gender representations. I often used she/her pronouns to hide my diference from the people around me. I was thoroughly and utterly lost, trying to discover the ways in which I wanted to be self. Tere were so many things that I had to evaluate, so many things to think through. What did it mean if I wanted to use other pronouns? What did that make me? Who did that make me?
One of the people that knew about my search for myself was my partner. Being able to be openly out as a queer woman was something that came naturally to me. My partner, a gender proud to be with and so I never questioned whether or not to be out with my sexuality. I’ve always appreciated everyone, no matter their presentation or their biology; who I was with was a representation of my values and I never faltered in them. Everyone around me knew I was queer whether or not I told them. I wore it as a badge of honor. I hung out with those like me. I made myself a comfortable space within an uncomfortable situation.
and brown communities is to be a dishonor to the “naturally-born” heterosexuals. I was a sin. It was a sin. And I needed to change. At the same time, I was thankful to have grown up around those like me, which allowed me to become comfortable in my own skin. My mother never judged me, my best friends were also queer, my schools openly “tolerant.” However, within black and brown community, being transgender is like committing a hate crime. Most black and brown communities come from cultures that reject the presence of homosexuality or transgender ideology. So I tried to hide it while I was fguring it out.
Tere were even parts of myself that internalized transphobia due to the general public’s reaction to transgender existence. Tere were parts of myself that denied the occasional masculinity that I felt. Being masculine
I made myslf a comfortable space witin an uncomfortable situation.
Eventually, I got tired. It was hard work covering up such an important part of my identity from people I would see every day. I was trying to ease into becoming a person that I wasn’t. I didn’t care that I didn’t know the label that I was going to place myself into; I knew that I felt diferent than others. I believed that the issue wasn’t with myself. It was with the world around me. Tat they were the reason that I felt the way I did. Tey were the reason that I couldn’t be my authentic self. Te world needed to change, not me. Not my perspective.
So I did what any normal person would do and spoke to my friends.
When doing so, there were a variety of reactions. Half of my friend group was queer, making it easy to explain to 50% of the people I cared about the most. My closest friend was able to notice that something was of immediately.
In her words: “Yeah, I could tell something was up.”
I told her everything I was going through, from feeling internalized transphobia to gender dysphoria. She listened and digested what I told her about dressing in many diferent gender expressions. She watched me as I became overwhelmed and began to cry, listening to me break down every step of my day-to-day life regarding my gender expression. Ten, she simply put my struggle into one word.
Gender-fuidity.
My problems were dumbed down into something simple. Something that was obviously easy for her to understand. My problems were almost a non-problem. gen·der-fu·id (adjective): denoting or relating to a person who does not identify as having a single unchanging gender.
Tat was something that I wasn’t necessarily unfamiliar with. My partner, also genderfuid, had told me his perspective on his gender and the way that he expresses it. Yet, when I heard my best friend refer to me as gender-fuid, I somehow became so shocked that I didn’t know what to do. Te fact that the problems that I was having with my gender identity were something that could be chopped up to something so simple, something that I already knew and vaguely understood, overwhelmed me.
With that newfound information, I quickly told my partner and asked their opinion.
“It sounds par for the course.”
And to that, I began to refect. Refecting on what it meant to not be solid within my gender. What it meant to shift, sometimes within the same day, week, or month. What it meant for those around me to accept my authentic self. Te pros and cons of being open about who I am.
I decided to hide myself for the rest of senior year. I wasn’t ready to be open about change and to have the
world accept that. I needed new scenery. I remained open with the people closest to me about my gender identity while keeping it undisclosed to the rest of the world. I didn’t want to have to deal with the mixed reactions from those around me. Tere was already occasional open homophobia that I dealt with and I decided I’d rather not deal with additional transphobia on top of that.
After graduation, I became more open about my choice in pronouns. When I began my frst job and was asked my pronouns, I automatically said she/her. All of my coworkers assumed that I used she/her pronouns, even when I came into work masculine presenting, since even when I am at my most masc-state, I still look feminine. Tis began to cause a lot of issues with my self-worth and image, so as I became closer with my coworkers, I became more open about my use of any pronouns and my gender expression. Soon enough, I found out that my coworkers were also queer-identifying;
We al understood and knew
one of them was also genderfuid and the other two nonbinary. I felt more safe and began to be more open with them about the things that I was experiencing in terms of my gender expression. We all understood each other and knew what it meant to be casually trans in a cisgender world. Soon enough, it was time to start my journey at Dartmouth. is created a lot of anxiety on whether or not I should be open about my pronouns. It would be the frst time that I would introduce myself to a new crowd of people as gender-fuid. Openly transgender for the frst time in a brand new space, with brand new rst started to introduce myself as, “Harmony and I use any pronouns,” it was something that felt so natural to e ability to be comfortable
with addressing that I am not cisgender was an ability that I was grateful to tap into in a new environment freely. I was not judged by anyone that I told. People still referred to me using she/her pronouns, which I didn’t mind, knowing that I pass of as feminine-presenting. Being one of the few genderqueer students in the group that I was surrounded with was honorable. I was open in the fact that I was testing out my comfortability with unconventional pronouns which people respected me for and allowed me to feel more connected in my experience at Dartmouth.
However, as my time at Dartmouth continued to grow, I became more uncomfortable with opening up as genderqueer to other individuals. People that knew my pronouns only referred to me using she/her pronouns. Despite knowing that I am comfortable with any pronouns and even on occasion prefer some more than others, people made the conscious decision to only refer to me using she/her pronouns. I expected people to switch pronouns with me on occasion in an efort to encompass my broad use of pronouns, not continue to refer to me with what seemed “easiest.” My gender expression wasn’t made to be something that was easy for others, it was meant to be something that was easy for me. Yet, I still had a hard time explaining that to people. I still had a fear of judgement and misplaced insecurity over my use of other pronouns.
My solution to this problem was similar to what I had done previously. I went to my friends, but this time, instead of my childhood friends, I decided on the newfound close friends that I made at Dartmouth. I asked one of my closest friends why they only referred to me using she/her pronouns despite being one of the people who was closest to me, who understood how I felt in reference to my gender.
truly just easier to refer to you using she/her pronouns. If you want more people to not always refer to you by she/her pronouns, then you need to open up about it.
understood each oter knew what it meant to be casualy trans in a cisgender world.
Pick and choose who you talk to the most and discover how their reference to you via pronouns impacts you the most. Not everyone is going to know how you feel about your gender, but some people matter more than others.”
Tat advice rang in my head.
Who truly matters to me? Whose opinions impact me the most?
Tose were the questions that I began to think about. It made me question the village that I had formed for myself in this small school.
Who truly maters to me? Whos opinions impact me rea
Who really mattered and why? Why should I let the way that they refer to me impact the way that I saw myself?
I then opened up to the group chat with my closest circle
“Hey guys, I want to say that I use any pronouns, but it would be great if you were to switch up the pronoun use. It makes me feel more seen. en I waited. And waited. And waited. It took unforeseeably long for my friends to stick to switching my pronoun use on occasion. Over a Dartmouth term, actually. It made me question the validity of my request.
Was I asking for to
But I began to notice a genuine shift in the way that they referred to me through casual conversation. My friends began to occasionally use he/him pronouns with me. friends that I told as well began to refer to me in mostly they/ them pronouns. I began to feel included and heard in the
Is it realy tat hard to respect my gender expression? myslf?
of the Unraveling Radical Feminism AntiInstitutionalism
By: Rachel Roncka
Art by: Lillia Hammond
Design by: Emma Hwang
“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.
“Tey may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”
-Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde’s “master’s tools” metaphor is a familiar mantra among intersectional feminist communities. Although often invoked to empower and encourage the ongoing feminist struggle against the patriarchal status quo, it also alludes to one of the political left’s greatest weaknesses: anti-institutionalism.
Te more I venture into the world of campus activism and leftist academia, I see that much of the literature and rhetoric is permeated by anti-institutional attitudes. Leading scholars in prison abolition, queer theory, radical feminism, etc. frequently deploy the language of “dismantling the system” and forming a “new society,” usually without any clear roadmap for how to do that. Tose employed in traditional institutions are met with scorn, regardless of their reasons for pursuing those career paths. Simply being perceived as part of “the system” automatically undercuts your credi bility and morality.
While it makes for compelling reading material, I worry about the practical implications of such extreme discourse and the mentalities it encourages. Excessive anti-institutionalism undermines our ability to build coalitions and enact change that could drastically improve people’s lives. In this way, it is actually a friend of the status quo that radical feminism aims to disrupt.
to describe what radical feminism is not. For my analysis, the most signifcant feature of radical feminism is the way it diferentiates itself from liberal feminism. Tis form of feminism is somewhat easier to explain. Liberal feminism aims to achieve gender equality through political and legal reforms. Te radical feminism I am concerned with views liberal feminism as an inferior and unenlightened predecessor, precisely for its focus on reform.
I see currents of this kind of radical feminism throughout the feminist canon, like in the work of bell hooks, and I hear echoes of it within intersectional feminist communities like Spare Rib.
It is important to think critically about our governing institutions, to recognize they were founded to uphold a white supremacist, patriarchal social order. But I worry that radical feminism’s anti-institutionalism has gone too far, to the point where it becomes an obstacle to meaningful progress.
Te more I explore leftist academia, I notice patterns of extremity in the rhetoric of radical feminism: Critique turns to condemnation. Reform is reviled. Incremental change is insufcient. “Liberal feminist” has become a derogatory term (I thought it was just the
Ideally, I could start by ofering a comprehensive defnition of what “radical feminism” is, but I know I am not qualifed to do that. Tere is so much fuidity and variation within feminism and its many diferent strains, a singular defnition may not even exist. It’s probably more helpful
“belittle state-directed political intervention.”
Every time I come across this tendency, I feel a familiar wave of frustration. Is this what it means to be radical? To pick apart the philosophical minutiae underlying the political strategies that won landmark victories for feminist and LGBTQ+ movements? To obsess over the purity of the moral reasoning behind our political actions, rather than focus on their material outcomes?
Tere are a lot of ironies to the anti-institutionalism of rad ical feminism. Perhaps the most glaring is that intersection ality, a core principle of every social equality movement, has origins in the liberal feminism which radical feminism insists on vilifying. Te concept of intersectionality was frst articulated by feminist legal scholar and civil rights attorney Kimberlé Crenshaw. She derived her ideas from an analysis of discrimination cases involving Black women. Evidently, the institution of the American legal system is a key venue where intersectional feminist action can be taken, but radical feminism would disagree.
Another irony of radical feminism is that much of its an ti-institutional rhetoric comes from those who are embed ded in the pinnacle of all institutions: higher education. Here in our little bubble of academia, we sit in classrooms discussing readings by scholars who work at other elite institutions. We entertain the possibilities of replacing market capitalism with full blown socialism or communism. We imagine communities with no ofcial authorities to enforce the law or en sure accountability. We read books that glorify anarchism as the most moral, liberating form of social (dis)order. All the while, we are so far removed from the actual communities these radical ideas seek to transform. I can’t help but wonder how those outside of the in stitution of higher education would react to this radical feminist rhetoric. If recent trends in American politics among the working class are any indication, proba bly not very favorably.
I’ve begun to think that, in many ways, being radical is a privilege. Of course, plenty of marginalized people discover their political radicalism out of need for survival, because their circumstances are so dire that radicalism is the only logical response. But I know that for myself, and likely many of us who have the opportunity of pursuing an Ivy
after mentioning that I am a Government major in activist spaces on campus. I make sure to quickly follow up with the fact that I’m also minoring in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, as if that is penance for my sins against feminism.
Radical feminism says that joining or complying with institutions reinforces their legitimacy and dominance. Te underlying assumption is that our governing institutions are inherently oppressive and irredeemable. Tat arbitrary laws and systems exert control over our bodies and psyche while providing no beneft to society. But are laws and systems really so arbitrary when you consider their material outcomes for marginalized people?
Political, legislative institutions have been the venue for civil rights struggles for a reason. Activists, motivated by radical ideas of equality, used the tools available to them. And at the time, exercising one’s voice in politics as a queer person and/or person of color was a radical feat. Maybe their eforts didn’t completely revolutionize society, but they still changed the status quo in a signifcant way and made millions of lives better. For radical feminists today to say that reform is insufcient seems to invalidate the sacrifces of past activists.
Te reality is that our fawed systems aren’t going to be overthrown anytime soon. I don’t think my capacities are best utilized by rejecting any opportunity to shape our
institutions just to preserve my identity as a true radical feminist. In fact, I feel as though doing so would be shirking a responsibility that the privilege of my education and social position grants me.
Tere is a huge chasm between radical feminists’ words and actions. It must be closed, but not by following through on promises of social revolution. Radical change doesn’t have to happen in one fell swoop, and the expectation that it must only holds us back from taking steps toward real progress.
We need to remember that reform can be radical, that imperfect progress doesn’t equate regression. Change that appears “incremental” in the grand scheme of things can be life-changing at the individual level. Who are we to say that’s insignifcant?
It’s true that our systems and the status quo they make up are deeply fawed, but that doesn’t mean they are completely irredeemable. At the end of the day, institutions are made up of people, and people have agency. Generations of social progress are
unraveling
before our very eyes because far-right radicalism has infected our institutions so thoroughly. I wonder, what would happen if the left tried out that strategy? If our governing systems were run by people determined to resist their dominant norms, to shake things up from within? Radical feminists surely have enough conviction to retain their values and motivations in those environments.
Let’s end as we began, with Audre Lorde’s metaphor of the master’s tools. But what if we re-envision it, this time without its anti-institutional undertones? What if we feminists were to take up those tools and refashion them into our own, infused with our radical values, hopes and visions? What if instead of seeking to dismantle the master’s house, we stage a feminist infltration, take over and make it welcoming for all who have been locked out?
Maybe we aren’t razing themaster’s house to the ground, but eventually it willbeunrecogniz a b l e fromhowitbegan.
I see this as a more viable strategy for radical feminism. If we want to really make change, then we can’t lose sight of our political reality in pursuit of overly-ambitious goals. I don’t see this as giving up or settling for less. After all, it’s only settling if we stop there - and we have every intention to keep
going.
In
In
Search
Search of the
“Great Good Place”: TikTok, Dartmouth, and the
“Great Good Place”: TikTok, Dartmouth, and the World
of the “Great Good Place”: TikTok, Dartmouth, and the
World Beyond
Beyond
World Beyond In Search of the
Author: Serena Suson
Author: Serena Suson
Author: Serena Suson
Art by: Nerissa Chin
Art by: Nerissa Chin
Art by: Nerissa Chin
Designed by: Serena Suson
Designed by: Serena Suson
Designed by: Serena Suson
When I choose to see the good side of things, I’m not being naive. It is strategic and necessary. It’s how I learned to survive through everything. I know you see yourself as a fghter. Well, I see myself as one too. Tis is how I fght. —Waymond Wang, Everything Everywhere All at Once[1]
I garner a laugh or two when I admit some premonition cemented in me the days before TikTok died. Te past two afternoons, I had been languishing in my bed, experiencing one-minute eulogies from creators across the country. Tey poured out their hearts, revealed their deepest, darkest entrepreneurial secrets before the app “went dark,” all at the fippant mercy of a scroll. Some content was sentimental; some was celebratory. A lot of people reenacted old videos they had made that went viral a few or so years ago. Old cosplays. People running to their rooftops before the video stopped recording. Te Ratatouille musical. Proposals. Gold doubloons. A frog I had never seen before told me this might be the last time we ever met. It was all there to relive in real time. In case you missed it. One last jubilee.
When you’re young, every loss feels like the end of the world. Every story left unfnished feels like a severing. I used to feel like that a lot when I was younger. Now, a couple more autumns under my belt, I still do. Even though I’ve learned to compartmentalize loss — to reckon with the fact that an end isn’t fnal and it never quite arrives when or how or why you thought it would — that feeling still pervades. I’ve stopped “generationalizing” that phenomenon, so to speak, although I continue to wonder how the increased access to knowledge and opinion has afected my generation specifcally. Te kids
who began to form their memories just as the Towers fell.[2] Te kids who witnessed the birth, the zenith, and the death of the Internet.[3] Te kids who can analogize their long Covid symptoms to an unprecedented neocolonial wound, at the same time they feel pressure not to wear a mask.[4] Te kids who used to be kids. Perhaps the frst generation of children — across diferences of race, gender, sex, sexuality, ability, age, geography, and nation — who wondered in unison if they would reach adulthood.[5]
How much do the youth shape the culture, anyway?
How much do the youth shape the culture, anyway?
How much do the youth shape the culture, anyway?
The most hopeless generation in the world, you might say, and this culture in which I’ve been reared has taught me relentlessly to hope.
The most hopeless generation in the world, you might say, and this culture in which I’ve been reared has taught me relentlessly to hope.
The most hopeless generation in the world, you might say, and this culture in which I’ve been reared has taught me relentlessly to hope.
Perhaps it’s a postmodern thing. An intellectual, pedagogical derivation. We could talk about the efects of poststructuralism. Diférance.[6] Te reduction of every epistemology, ontology, and teleology, to nothing. We could talk about how T.S. Eliot went writing his pen dry with Te Wasteland back when they still called World War I “Te Great War.” We could talk about how “Te Myth of Sisyphus” breaks every single premise of Greco-Roman theology yet possesses the most inspiring takeaway in the world.[7] But the Gods are dead. Teir busts returned to dust. And yet — we have collapsed so densely into nothing that we must necessarily turn back.
One of my favorite TikTok trends involved the phrase “the indomitable power of the human spirit.” Quite magniloquent for just some TikTok text slapped across a slideshow. I don’t know how people come up with this stuf. Certainly not everyone’s turned over the same intellectual conversations in their head about existentialism. Not everyone’s read Nietzsche and contemplated the diference between “Nothing matters :(“ and “Nothing matters :).”[8] I haven’t even read Nietzsche!
Why do I even need an intellectual register to try to analyze this experience, anyway? Yet, how is it so pervasive — and so well-articulated? Tat feeling, that need, to push past dread, chaos, and fatalism to give birth to
optimism, to organize. How humanizing, humanist, human. And there it was on my screen a year or so ago, succinctly portrayed, liked, commented on by hundreds and thousands of people. Tere it was on my screen, that feeling, democratized.
When I frst came to Dartmouth, I knew very little about being an intersectional feminist, besides the knowledge that I was one. I half-stumbled into Spare Rib because Maanasi Shyno ’23, one of the students who originally revived the zine after its brief yet remarkable run back in the 90’s, happened to be my partner for the “Salty Dog Rag” at Sklodge during Orientation and then also happened to be tabling for the org a couple days later at the Club Fair. Ella Grim ’25 and I developed such a personal and organizational rapport because we both were GroupMe famous. Just admitted into the Dartmouth coterie, we were eager to defne ourselves, to make friends. Coincidence and chaos strung me along to self-actualization.
I suppose I know a little more now than I used to. Caty Brown ’23’s historicization of the word “hysteria,” Ana Noriega Olazabal ’24’s presentation on material feminism, Mingwei Huang’s WGSS 12: Feminist and Queer Teories and Methods class, the conversations we have had, and the stunts we have pulled over the years have
Oldenburg was adamant about a third place’s relation to its specifc local community. Indeed, his particular focus derives from a distinctly American lens and thus proves somewhat intransigent to analysis of non-Western cultures or geographically unbound communities. While an interesting construction, Oldenburg’s context for and propoundment of the third place presents limited promise as a sociological model.
Especially when we consider the reach of “multiple-user domains,” as Soukup terms them (think Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, etc.), Oldenburg’s theory is not entirely equipped to assess the viability of these communicative channels as third places. Soukup himself admits that, “Oldenberg, whose heart clearly lies in local community, did not have computer-mediated contexts in mind when devising his description of great good places.”[15] Even when Soukup himself attempts to update Oldenberg’s philosophy to examine a “virtual third place” in the case of “computer-mediated contexts,” his proposals perhaps still hold too much shape for the current contemporary moment.[16]
Sure, it’s easier to insert the academy within the third place paradigm because of its spatial permanence and because the West exerted profound infuence over the structure of the university to begin with. In your frst few months of college, it might even be fun to imagine that opportunity sprawls before you from East Wheelock to Tuck Drive to Occom Pond like the ultimate Socratic seminar. You might really fnd the best version of yourself one night during your freshman spring, somewhere between your best friend’s dorm room, the Blobby warm cut, and Frat Row (notably NOT a basement). But as you become more intertwined with people and place, as you should, you start seeing the cracks in the newly-cemented steps of Dartmouth Hall. Neither Title IX nor OPAL nor the library help your underclassman friends put together a presentation about sexual assault against Asian-American women. Won drowns in the river. Te administration starts arresting your friends. And more simply: given everything, your classes don’t excite you anymore. Tus it stands: the ideal college experience, too, is
Soukup’s idea of locality is similarly as restrained as Oldenburg’s in order to discount the grouping of virtual spaces around “decontextualized ‘topics,’” what we may liberally and with likely promise of error, refer to as “fandom.”[17]
But this seems too narrow
of a framework for me: that productive conversations on the Internet can only occur as they transfer ofine into “clearly defned locations and/or cultural contexts.”[18] Te supposition seeks to reduce the trans-ing power of the Web.[19] While it’s true that efective praxis can emerge from a specifc, geographically contained community represented across the Internet, it is equally likely that strategies can rise from identity-based media groups as well as fandom. Fandom is, after all, how I got started.
Before he provides the more rigid scope of virtual “place” as discussed above, Soukup provides a few comments on physicality and performance that most relate to my experience on the Internet. Inspired by Erving Gofman, he describes a localization process through which “participants’ collective performances produce a mutual defnition of the situation or shared reality which indicates how the actors should behave.”[20] Here, Soukup describes a locality that is much more ambiguous, pliable yet socially conscious: “the defnition of the situation is rarely static and can be defned creatively by the participants.”[21] If we contemplate, for instance, the locality or situation of an app, it may be a great deal informed by how people use the space initially but is subject to change. Users on TikTok, for example, still produce a large output of lip sync videos because of the app’s original identity as Musically. Te “culture,” however, has shifted to embrace other forms of short-form audiovisual entertainment. People create and present their own takes on memes; people dance; people broadcast their lives; people share news; people crowdfund; people organize.
good places on the world wide web,” New Media & Society 8, no. 3, (Sage Publications, 2006), 432.
[17]Charles Soukup, “Computer-mediated communication as a virtual third place: building Oldenburg’s great good places on the world wide web,” New Media & Society 8, no. 3, (Sage Publications, 2006), 433.
[18]Charles Soukup, “Computer-mediated communication as a virtual third place: building Oldenburg’s great good places on the world wide web,” New Media & Society 8, no. 3, (Sage Publications, 2006), 433.
[19]For a contemplation on the expansive linguistic and imaginary possibilities of “trans,” see: Susan Stryker, Paisley Currah, and Lisa Jean Moore, “Introduction: Trans-, Trans, or Transgender?” Women’s Studies Quarterly 36, no. 3/4 (2008): 11–22, doi:10.1353/wsq.0.0112.
[20]Charles Soukup, “Computer-mediated communication as a virtual third place: building Oldenburg’s great good places on the world wide web,” New Media & Society 8, no. 3, (Sage Publications, 2006), 433.
[21]Charles Soukup, “Computer-mediated communication as a virtual third place: building Oldenburg’s great good places on the world wide web,” New Media & Society 8, no. 3, (Sage Publications, 2006), 433.
unravel verb
un·rav·el
unraveled; unraveling; unravels
1 a: to disengage or separate the threads of b: to cause to come apart by or as if by separating the threads of
2 :to resolve the intricacy, complexity, or obscurity of :clear up
and begin taking contraceptives earlier in life.7
Hope Ngumezi, a 35 year old woman in Houston, had a painful miscarriage at 11 weeks. While the established procedure entailed a dilation and curettage, the physician instead prescribed a medicine that resulted in her death.8 Pregnant teenager Naveah Crain passed away in Texas after travelling to multiple emergency rooms trying to receive care and being denied. Abortion bans have made doctors fearful of following previously established care standards, resulting in devastating consequences over the past year.9
Even when women of color do have access to adequate healthcare and contraceptives, these resources are weaponized against them.
Queer populations also face a unique set of challenges in reproductive healthcare, and these challenges are notoriously difcult to overcome for transgender populations. 19-27% of transgender people in the United States report being turned away by healthcare providers; 50% of transgender patients report having to educate a healthcare provider about how to provide care. Tis discrimination then prevents transgender people from seeking care at all.10
Tese disparities do not each exist in a vacuum– rather, they each exist as a symptom of a broader structural failure to protect the most marginalized. Without correcting these structures, legitimate change is unlikely.
2. Forced Sterilization
Forced sterilization refers to government-sponsored programs targeting the sterilization of a particular group. It represents a blatant violation of reproductive autonomy and is a tool of genocide.
As Mikki Kendall writes in Hood Feminism, discussions of forced sterilization are an inherently feminist, deeply intersectional issue often left behind in mainstream
feminist discussions. Te history of such procedures in the United States targeting people of color, incarcerated populations, and disabled people is long and disturbing.
Between 1970 and 1976, 20-25% of Indigenous women were sterilized in coerced, nonconsensual procedures. Te Indian Health Service (IHS) initially evolved as a government-sponsored mechanism to address health concerns in Indigenous community, but while telling women they were receiving appendectomies, they performed irreversible tubal ligations— an invasive procedure that afects the [organ]— later claiming that they were “helping society” by limiting the number of births.11 Records from the Government Accountability Ofce suggest that they knew the IHS was skirting regulations regarding informed consent, yet they took no action for several years. After continuous legal battles and revised defnitions of consent, forced sterilization has fnally been minimized within the Indigenous community. Tis weaponization continues a long trend of white entitlement over the bodies of people of color, reducing them to dehumanizing fgures to control rather than people who deserve respect and care.
It is no surprise, then, that another group of victims came from another system that disproportionately targets women of color: United States prisons. Between 2006 and 2010, California prisons were accused of authorizing coerced sterilization of nearly 150 female inmates. Because America’s sympathy for the incarcerated population is troublingly lacking, media coverage of this transgression was incredibly low.Despite the accusations surfacing just a few years ago with substantial evidence, the American public was largely unaware. A doctor from
Valley State prison—one of the prisons exposed by ABC News— justifed conducting such procedures, saying that the amount of money they spent performing those sterilizations was a small price “compared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children as they procreated more.”12 By playing into narratives about desirable and undesirable children, particularly along racial boundaries, these sterilizations efectively contribute to a modern-day eugenics-based healthcare system in prisons. Tis is an incredibly
Te Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency of the US government, has long been condemned for its violence against immigrants, but this issue has always been a feminist one as well. As the ACLU writes, ofcers in detention centers have a long history of sterilizing people assigned female at birth coercively under the guise of signed documents “proving consent”.
In the early 1970s, the Madrigal case was particularly horrifying. As women were in the midst of labor and heavily medicated, hospital staf reportedly pressured the women into signing consent forms in a language they could not understand. Isolated and in pain, these women signed the documents and were devastated when they learned the reality of what had happened to them: they were forcibly sterilized.13 Unfortunately, these allegations are far from the past– just last year, there were allegations of almost identical conditions in Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC) in Georgia.14 Internal government accountability structures are poorly managed at best
and nonexistent at worst. While the abuses in detention centers are recognized, they are rarely responded to, leaving America’s most vulnerable populations at the whims of cruel medical professionals. In trying so hard to ensure that immigrants enter the country legally, the American government is perfectly willing to ignore its own crimes and atrocities.
Disabled women are endangered by these narratives as well. Te National Women’s Law Center explains that as of 2022, 31 states and Washington, D.C. have laws under which judges can decide whether to sterilize someone without their consent. 15 Tese laws stem from the assumption that disabled people are incapable of making decisions for themselves, infantilizing people as part of a larger pattern that seeks to build control of disabled peoples’ bodies.
While the abuses in detention centers are recognized, they are rarely responded to, leaving America’s most vulnerable populations at the whims of cruel medical professionals.
3.Diminished Abortion Access
While abortion has long been considered a feminist issue, the level of disparity among women is not homogeneous. Women of lower socioeconomic class and women of color are more likely to have an abortion due to limit contraceptive access and fnancial limitations, and these people are also more likely to be raped and subjected to unwanted pregnancies.16
People in rural areas—particularly conservative areas— already lack access to abortion centers, but this problem is compounded by new “trafcking” laws such as that in Idaho, which outlaws assisting a minor get an abortion in another state.17 For minors who experience unwanted or non-consensual
pregnancies, this legal framework is devastating. Ultimately, it dictates that while a minor and their parents are not capable of deciding whether a child should deliver a baby, they somehow should be capable of raising that baby.
As Jessica Valenti explains in her book, Abortion, even women who do not have abortions are targeted under current legislation. In a world where reproductive care of all kinds is being criminalized, traumatic miscarriages become weaponized against women as well. People who have partial miscarriages and need medical assistance to fnish evacuating their uterus are denied care because vague legal defnitions of abortion leave doctors fearing license suspension and criminal charges.
Ohioan Brittany Watts’ story is particularly harrowing–a woman who had a miscarriage and fushed it was subsequently charged with “abuse of a corpse”. While she was eventually released and sued the hospital that reported her to police, the additional pain she endured while recounting the traumatic event of her miscarriage to politically biased law enforcement membersis impossible for her to erase.
Under the new administration– one which seeks to criminalize people assigned female at birth and politicize medical care– there is no doubt that issues like this will continue to surface. Because these issues ofen involve the legal system and law enforcement , vulnerable populations and communities of color will have fewer resources to fght back, and as such, end up more vulnerable to these unsolicited attacks.
Final Thoughts
My intention is not to diminish your hope for the women of America. Instead, it is to breathe consciousness and intentionality into your advocacy. It is to remind you of the rage you must harness for the people you love– for your siblings, mothers, friends, and daughters– and to help you recognize that feminist struggles are not experienced uniformly by all women.
From organized activism to conducting research on the constant evolution of inequities, there are many ways to get involved in correcting these disparities. Although your voice is but one in a sea of many, it only takes one person to begin a revolution. It is easy to feel powerless, but your power is greater than you recognize. It is our responsibility to demand better from our society, from our world.
*Note: Tis article interchangeably uses the words “women”, “people”, and “assigned female at birth” to refer to people impacted by these damages to reproductive rights, recognizing that many people who need access to such care do not identify as women. However, most of the available data on state-sponsored reproductive violence centers around people who identify as women, which is why these terms are used interchangeably.
Footnotes
1 Charles Blow, “Temporarily Disconnected From Politics? Feel No Guilt About It,” Te New York Times, last modifed December 18, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/18/opinion/ trump-liberals-resistance.html.
2 James Dean, “Democratic decline a global phenomenon, even in wealthy nations,” Cornell Chronicle, last modifed January 17, 2024, https:// news.cornell.edu/stories/2024/01/democratic-decline-global-phenomenon-even-wealthy-nations.
3 Teresa Boitano, “Increased disparities associated with black women and abnormal cervical cancer screening follow-up,” National Institutes of Health, last modifed July 16, 2022, https://pmc. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9309676/#:~:text=While%2085%20%25%20of%20Black%20women,Society%2C%202019%E2%80%932021).
4 Carolyn Fang, “O vercoming Barriers to Cervical Cancer Screening Among Asian American Women,” National Institutes of Health, last modifed June 15, 2011, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih. gov/articles/PMC3115728/#:~:text=Studies%20indicate%20that%20various%20psychosocial,screening%20among%20Asian%20American%20wom-
6 Shishira Sreenivas, “Health Disparities and Bias in Contraception Access and Care,” WebMD, last modifed May 27, 2024, https://www. webmd.com/sex/birth-control/contraception-access-care-disparities-bias.
7 Liza Fuentes, “Inequity in US Abortion Rights and Access: Te End of Roe Is Deepening Existing Divides,” Guttmacher Institute, last modifed January 2023, https://www.guttmacher. org/2023/01/inequity-us-abortion-rights-and-access-end-roe-deepening-existing-divides.
8 Lizzie Presser and Kavitha Surana, “A third woman has died under Texas’ abortion ban as doctors reach for riskier miscarriage treatments,” Te Texas Tribute, last modifed November 27, 2024, https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/27/texas-abortion-death-porsha-ngumezi.
9 Lizzie Presser and Kavitha Surana, “A Pregnant Teenager Died Afer Trying to Get Care in Tree Visits to Texas Emergency Rooms,” ProPublica, last modifed November 1, 2024, https://www. propublica.org/article/nevaeh-crain-death-texasabortion-ban-emtala.
10 “Transgender Sexual and Reproductive Health: Unmet Needs and Barriers to Care,” Advocates for Trans Equality, https://transequality. org/resources/transgender-sexual-and-reproductive-health-unmet-needs-and-barriers-care#:~:text=Many%20providers%20still%20turn%20 transgender,sexual%20and%20reproductive%20 health%20care.
11 Jane Lawerence, “Te Indian Health Service and the Sterilization of Native American Women,” American Indian Quarterly, last modifed 2000, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1185911?mag=the-little-known-history-of-the-forced-sterilization-of-native-american-women&seq=1.
12 “California Prisons Caught Sterilizing Female Inmates Without Approval,” ABC News, last modifed July 2018, https://abcnews.go.com/ABC_ Univision/doctors-california-prisons-sterilized-female-inmates-authorizations/story?id=19610110.
13 Maya Manian, “Immigration Detention
and Coerced Sterilization: History Tragically Repeats Itself,” American Civil Liberties Union, last modifed September 29, 2020, https://www.aclu.org/news/ immigrants-rights/immigration-detention-and-coerced-sterilization-history-tragically-repeats-itself 14 Elizabeth Ghadakly and Rachel Fabi, “Sterilization in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE’s) Detention: Ethical Failures and Systemic Injustice,” National Institutes of Health, last modifed May 2021, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/ PMC8034024/
15 “Forced Sterilization of Disabled People in the United States,” National Women’s Law Center, last modifed January 23, 2022, https://nwlc.org/resource/ forced-sterilization-of-disabled-people-in-the-united-states/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAqL28BhCrARIsACYJvke-kFEtPKrXL2-_dauktRWsqxC6rQ2wZnqRXphHbWy0_029jB6mUPIaAoFkEALw_ wcB.
16 Latoya Hill and Samantha Artiga, “What are the Implications of the Dobbs Ruling for Racial Disparities,” KFF, last modifed April 24, 2024, https:// www.kf.org/womens-health-policy/issue-brief/whatare-the-implications-of-the-dobbs-ruling-for-racialdisparities.
17
Aria Bendix, “Idaho becomes one of the most extreme anti-abortion states with law restricting travel for abortions,” NBC News, last modifed April 6, 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/ idaho-most-extreme-anti-abortion-state-law-restrictstravel-rcna78225.
Wicked As Wicked As
Woman’s Magic Woman’s Magic
By: Eda Naz Gokdemir Art by: Henry Dorr
Design by: Rachel Roncka
“Teach her all, Ogion said, and what am I teaching her? Cooking and spinning?” Ten another part of her mind said in Goha’s voice, “And are those not true arts, needful and noble? Is wisdom all words? 2
-Ursula
K.
Le Guin, Tehanu
My grandmother and mother taught me how to knit, among other things. Tey handed me a pair of knitting needles and a single ball of yarn and told me to start with one stitch. “Make a scarf frst,” they said. So, I did. As an anxious and restless child, knitting became a refuge—it allowed my thoughts to drift without needing to focus too hard. I knit and knit, long past the point of making an acceptable scarf. Yet my mother and grandmother never taught me any other stitches, perhaps thinking my mind was too young or my fngers too small. “Te work itself is good for you,” they said. “It’s good to make something.” Even if that something never ends.
Perhaps they, too, were knitting their own never-ending scarves: cooking, cleaning, mending—only to start anew every morning. Te dishes would pile up again, clothes would be worn, and their stitches would be undone. Teir labor remained invisible, yet their hands grew more calloused; their backs ached a little more each day. I didn’t see these things as a child. To me, the women who raised me were the most powerful people I knew: beings of pure magic, creating worlds at the tips of their fngers.
claim that she chose wrong simply because she turned away from traditionally defned forms of power in favor of nurturing relationships and embracing traits associated with femininity perpetuates two harmful assumptions. First, it implies that there is only one valid way to exercise power, dismissing the idea that caring and nurturing can be profound acts of strength—arguably requiring more inner courage than the pursuit of “greatness.”
I was often confused about how the “real” world, or at least the one I was stuck in, worked, so I sought other worlds. I read fantasy because I wanted power when I felt powerless, searched for change when I felt static, and yearned to learn magic like that of the women who raised me. Yet even in lands full of magic, women’s magic was
Second, it reinforces the notion that traits commonly associated with femininity, such as care and domestic responsibility, are inferior, suggesting that for women to
elusive. Great mages, dragon lords, and mythical heroes were impressive enough, but they weren’t real. Maybe I was searching for the impossible: real magic. Why did I look for it in books? Wasn’t bearing witness to the impossibilities my mother and grandmother created every day enough? Perhaps even when I was little, I thought, on some level, their magic didn’t change worlds—they were stuck in their loops, their eforts endlessly sustaining others, never themselves. And fantasy didn’t often tell stories about people like us. It was a genre of kings, knights, grand battles, and the eternal clash between good and evil. Where were the stories of those who lived beneath the feet of giants, quietly creating magic of their own?
Then I met Tehanu of Earthsea.
Te frst three novels of the Earthsea Cycle published between 1968-1972 that precede Tehanu are what you would think of as typical fantasy books: they follow those with conventional forms of power, authority, or strength, who, like in our corner of the universe, happen to be male. In the author’s, Ursula K. Le Guin’s words:
No wonder; where are the women in Earthsea? Two of the books of the trilogy have no major female characters [...] Communities of men in Earthsea are defned as powerful, active, and autonomous; the community of women in Atuan is described as obe dient to distant male rulers; a static, closed society
power over others, and seem not to involve great consequences. Tey are “private” acts and choices, made in terms of immediate, actual relationships. To those who still believe that the public and the private can be separated, that there is a great world of men and war and politics and business and a little world of women and children and personal relations, and that these are truly worlds apart, one important, the other not—to such readers, Tenar’s choice will appear foolish, and her story sadly unheroic.9
[...] And in all three books the fundamental power— magic—belongs to men; only to men; only to men who have no sexual contact with women.3
I know that even in fairyland there is no escape from politics, I look back and see that I was writing partly by the rules, as an artifcial man.7
Le Guin refects on why she chose to construct her fctional world to be unquestioningly patriarchal, acknowledging the infuence of the era’s expectations. At the time, writers were often encouraged to “transcend” gender, an ideal that subtly perpetuated the dominance of male perspectives. She goes on to explain: “For many decades, it had been held that to perceive oneself as a woman writer or as a man writer would limit one’s scope, one’s humanity; that to write as a woman or as a man would politicize the work and so invalidate its universality.”4 Tis false and misguided “apolitical” ideal of the writer, coupled with the unchallenged gendering of the traditional hero as male in classic and fantasy literature, even led an author like Le Guin—widely regarded as one of the pioneers of feminist science fction—to create a world dominated by men.6 In her words:
Since my Earthsea books were published as chil dren’s books, I was in an approved female role. So long as I behaved myself, obeyed the rules, I was free to enter the heroic realm. I loved that freedom and never gave a thought to the terms of it. Now that
In Tehanu, Ursula K. Le Guin revisits the fctional world of Earthsea eighteen years after its supposed conclusion to confront the biases of her earlier work. She explains:
From a woman’s point of view, Earthsea looked quite diferent than it did from a man’s point of view. All I had to do was describe it from the point of view of the powerless, the disempowered — women, children, a wizard who has spent his gift and must live as an ‘ordinary’ man.8
The novel follows Tenar, once a priestess known as Arha in Te Tombs of Atuan, now living as Goha, a widowed farmer. After taking in Terru, a young girl horrifcally abused and left with severe burns, Tenar is summoned to the deathbed of her former mentor, Ogion. Tere, she encounters Ged, the once-powerful Archmage of Earthsea, who has lost his magical abilities following the events of Te Farthest Shore. Ged, now rendered ordinary, must reconcile his identity without the powers that once defned him, while Tenar navigates
new promise is erru, an abused orphan who is revealed to be half-dragon and half-human. In the earlier books,
her role as caregiver to both Ged and Terru. Le Guin centers the story on daily domestic life, weaving themes of powerlessness, resilience, and healing into the fabric of Tenar’s quiet yet transformative journey.
Rather than epic battles or grand quests, Tehanu fnds its magic in care, survival, and the rediscovery of inner strength, reimagining Earthsea from the ground up. While some critics argue that the novel diminishes women, particularly Tenar, by having her choose the role of homemaker and caregiver over pursuing the magical powers promised by the mages she knows, I argue that this choice is a strength of the story, not a weakness. To
might reject for themselves. But the crucial point is this: it is her choice. Le Guin puts it better than I ever could:
[Tenar] chose to leave the mage Ogion, her guard ian and guide to masculine knowledge; she chose to be a farmer’s wife. Why? Was she seeking a difer ent, an obscurer knowledge? Was she being “woman ly,” bowing to society’s resistance to independently powerful women? [..] She has not abnegated power. But her defnition of action, decision, and power is not heroic in the masculine sense. Her acts and choices do not involve ascendance, domination,
claim that she chose wrong simply because she turned away from traditionally defned forms of power in favor of nurturing relationships and embracing traits associated with femininity perpetuates two harmful assumptions.
First, it implies that there is only one valid way to exercise power, dismissing the idea that caring and nurturing can be profound acts of strength—arguably requiring more inner courage than the pursuit of “greatness.”
Second, it reinforces the notion that traits commonly associated with femininity, such as care and domestic responsibility, are inferior, suggesting that for women to be powerful, they must emulate men. To believe Tenar’s choice was wrong is to devalue her agency. She may have made a choice that many women, feminist or otherwise,
power over others, and seem not to involve great consequences. Tey are “private” acts and choices, made in terms of immediate, actual relationships. To those who still believe that the public and the private can be separated, that there is a great world of men and war and politics and business and a little world of women and children and personal relations, and that these are truly worlds apart, one important, the other not—to such readers, Tenar’s choice will appear foolish, and her story sadly unheroic.9
Le Guin is not merely interested in empowering her female characters, but also in questioning the way we think about stories of power. Le Guin observes that be-
cause these traditional Western fantasy stories are about men, “the hero-tale has concerned the establishment or validation of manhood. It has been the story of a quest, or a conquest, or a test, or a contest.” Ten, who would a non-male hero be? What would a story that did not center on traditional notions of manhood look like? Le Guin thus reveals the hidden heroism in everyday acts of care: when Tenar teaches Terru how to weave and the ancient words of magic, when Ged, the once-powerful wizard, makes peace with his changing role in the world and spends his days herding Tenar’s sheep, and when Tenar combs her sheep’s wool with great attention and precision, quietly transforming the ordinary into something meaningful. Le Guin says: “In Tehanu, Ged’s virtues are no longer the traditional male heroic ones: power as domination over others, unassailable strength, and the generosity of the rich.” Heroism is found “among housewives and elderly goatherds.” When we question our assumptions about heroism and power, we fnd freedom. Le Guin writes:
Certainly, if we discard the axiom “what’s important is done by men,” with its corollary “what women do isn’t important,” then we’ve knocked a hole in the hero-tale, and a good deal may leak out. We may have lost quest, contest, and conquest as the plot, sacrifce as the key, victory or destruction as the ending; and the archetypes may change. Tere
may be old men who aren’t wise, witches who aren’t wicked, mothers who don’t devour. Tere may be no public triumph of good over evil, for in this new world, what’s good or bad, important or unim portant, hasn’t been decided yet, if ever. Judgment is not referred up to the wise men. History is no longer about great men.
Le Guin writes a history of people rendered ordinary by choice or circumstance, who reject the patriarchal “heroism of the old tradition.” Tis rejection leaves them “helpless,” as “no magic, nothing they know…can stand against the pure malevolence of institutionalized power.” Le Guin demonstrates that her characters, like ourselves, cannot depend on the established systems of power to overcome their struggles, as these systems are the very source of their sufering. “Teir strength and salvation must come from outside the institutions and traditions. It must be a new thing.”14 In Tehanu, this new promise is Terru, an abused orphan who is revealed to be half-dragon and half-human. In the earlier books, dragons symbolize wildness—“what is not owned” and cannot be owned. But in Tehanu, they come to represent something greater: “subversion, revolution, change.”15 Terru becomes the bridge between the old order, which left her burned and scarred, and the promise of a transformed world. “A wrong that cannot be repaired must be transcended,” and Terru does just that, transcending
UnravelingEmotionsthroughErykahBadu’s MAMA’SGUN
Author: Erika Sowah
Art by: Geena San Diego Design by: Layla Charron
Music is an avenue for healing, and oftentimes I swear I can feel my soul dancing. When I listen to Mama’s Gun by Erykah Badu, I feel my anxieties and emotions unravel until I am left with just myself. Badu has a unique talent that allows her to manipulate the music in order to amplify her lyrics, and this skill presents itself throughout the album. Tere are four songs on the album that have the divine ability to ground me after I’ve let my mind foat too far: “Didn’t Cha Know” “...& On” “In Love With You” and “Green Eyes”
“Didn’t Cha Know” is your classic neo soul song. Te drums sound, marking the beginning of the song, then there is a sudden and dramatic pull; I am being dragged into the music. Te drums continue to underline the entire song, highlighting the afrocentric sound. A choir jumps in with angelic-like vocals, then Badu’s sultry voice takes over. Just like the beat in the beginning felt like a sort of pull into the music, Badu’s voice draws me in deeper. She shares her experience making a wrong turn and fnding herself lost, refecting on the mistakes she’s made in her life. Despite this confusion and disorientation, she says she still, “stopped to watch [her] emotions sway.” To me, this line serves as a reminder to pause, close my eyes, and sit with myself. She goes on to sing:
“Love is life and life is free Take a ride fo life with me Free your mind and fnd your way Tere will be a better day”
Tese are not lyrics, but direct instructions to heal. Tis song serves as Badu’s acceptance of her mistakes, and her acknowledgement of failure as a fundamental aspect of the human condition.
Next is “...& On,” which found its unique place in my heart because of the gorgeous imagery within the song and its ‘prequel’ “On & On.” After Erykah Badu’s debut album Baduizm (1997), Badu received heavy criticism for her alleged lack of clarity on the philosophical song “On & On.” Tis song, “...& On,” serves as a spiritually charged introspective response to the critics. Te track begins with what sounds like a deconstructed version of the “On & On” introduction, clearly informing the listener that the critics do not have
the ability to assess Badu’s work then move on “ rather they opened up a discussion. Tis song sounds more whimsical and dynamic than “Didn’t Cha Know.” To me it sounds like a conversation between Badu and her friends brainstorming the central idea: is a message still meaningful even with an oblivious audience? Badu asks:
“What good do your words do if they can’t understand you? Don’t go talkin’ that shit Badu, Badu”
Tis question has continued to prove relevant since before this song was released. How can you enact change without a receptive audience?
After introducing this challenge, Badu presents the duality of her star sign Pisces. Te Pisces zodiac is typically represented by two fsh swimming in opposite directions, representing the tension between fantasy and reality. Te reference to the Pisces fsh works to echo Badu’s relatable inner confict. She sings, “Two fsh, one swimmin’ upstream / One swimmin’ down livin in a dream.” Should she lean into her imaginative side and foat downstream, disregarding the ears her message never reached, or should she push upstream and forge through reality?
Clearly, she chooses reality as the song functions as a way to double down on her initial message. Right before Badu signs of, she begins speaking in a very clear and melodic rap. She recounts the times she realized her disadvantaged position in society based on her identity:
“I remember when I went with Momma to the Washateria Remember how I felt the day I frst started my period Remember there in school one day I learned I was inferior Water in my cereal”
Badu narrates her retrospective realization of how her low-income upbringing as a Black woman informed her childhood and her external perception from others. Trips to the laundromat with her mother, getting her period, likely being teased in school, and eating cereal with water rather than milk are all experiences that inform her beliefs, thus they are experiences that inform the messages she shares in her songs. She does not speak about accepting her mistakes and failures in “Didn’t Cha Know” as a privileged person, but rather shares her acceptance of her failures as someone who has been forced to climb mountains her entire life. Tis distinction is precisely the reason her music resonates with so many, including myself; despite these hindranc-es she remains triumphant.
Finally, before entering her last verse, she references “On & On” once again saying, “Wrap ya head with this material / ‘Cause you did not do your math.” Tis line ofers a nod to one of the more complicated lines of “On & On” in which she uses a metaphor to equate being born with three dollars and six dimes to being born 360°, or, complete. In making this reference she is efectively condemning those who critiqued the unclear nature of her symbolism. With this line she is insisting her audience fnally do the math and understand the truths she aims to convey.
In “In Love With You” featuring Stephen Marley, the two worked together to weave the mystifying feeling of being desper-ately in love into a singular track. As a neo soul and afrofuturist artist, most of Badu’s other songs have some sort of electric com-ponent. In this song, however, the only apparent instruments are an acoustic guitar and snapping fngers. Te track is bare, naked, and vulnerable, which clearly refects the exposed nature of being in love. Marley’s reggae style enhances the already spiritual nature of the song given Badu’s typical sound. Tis song is a conversation between Marley and Badu, both denying their love for each other, then subsequently thrusting themselves into their love. Tis track portrays the anxiety of falling in love, the warmth of being loved, and fnally, melting into the feeling. Badu sings:
“He said he’s really diggin’ me I don’t know what to say I can’t imagine why I feel so weak. Tat’s when he took my heart in his hands And kissed it gently He opened up his lips then said this poetry I’m in love with you, love with you”
EDCultureEDCulture Online Online
By: Abigail Byrne
Art by: Clara Schreibman
Design by: Anonymous
Content war ontent warning: E ning: Eating disor ating disorders, Body I ders, Image, other mage, triggering topics related to these ideas elated to ideas
Te resurgence of 90s and early 2000s fashion, known as the “Y2K” style, is just the latest example of the often cyclical nature of trends in popular culture. However, low-rise jeans are not the only aspect of this period making a comeback—the rampant fatphobia, toxic diet culture, and excessive valorization of thinness that characterized those decades have also made their comeback.
While these ideas have adopted new, more palatable facades, their pernicious effects and roots in patriarchal, oppressive systems have not changed.
Tere’s been an “ideal” body-type for women throughout history. Since the 1920s and the lauding of the slender body of fappers, thinness has been widely glorifed throughout Western mass media. Although there have been variations in which “type” of thin body was placed on a pedestal, thin has more or less remained “in” for the past century In response to this, eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia have become an increasingly pressing issue as people strive to achieve unrealistic, oftentimes unhealthy expec tations of what society deems a “beautiful” bod and 2000s were notorious for this. Supermodels like Kate Moss glamorized the style “her was characterized by excessive thinness as a result of heroin and other substance abuse. Tabloids viciously attacked female celebrities for their weight. Films and TV from the period constantly fostered fatphobia, fat-shaming women who did not strictly adhere to specifc bodily ideals.
However, in the 2010s, there seemed to be a sharp cultural shift towards greater acceptance, celebration, and depiction of diverse bodies in media. Body Positivity, a
movement which encouraged people to love their bodies no matter what, took of and became increasingly mainstream. Cha trooms, hashtags, videos, and songs all promoted self-love. Celebrities spoke out. It appeared as though society took steps to deconstruct some of the fatphobia ingrained into socie tal norms. Large-scale corporations even created ad campaigns depicting diferent body-types, attempting to appeal to a popular, widespread movement.
Despite this ap parent “progress,” the past few years have been defned by a drastic increase in fatphobia, espe cially on social media apps like TikTok and Instagram.
Te social landscape in these online spaces increasingly mirrors the diet-obsessed, fat-shaming tabloids of the 90s and 2000s. Notably, people on TikTok refer to themselves or others who are eating a certain amount of typically unhealthy food as “big backs,” a clear manner of stigmatizing certain behavior by associating it with larger bodies. Comment sections are vicious; people whose bodies do not ft society’s increasingly small standard of thinness can fnd themselves mercilessly mocked and criticized by thousands, or even millions, of strangers if their video goes viral. One can fnd TikToks with millions of likes showing of their fridges full of protein shakes, fresh fruit, and vegetables describing how they need to “lock-in” to achieve the body they want for summer. While there is nothing wrong with wanting to live a healthy, active lifestyle, there is an evident connection between the previously described normalization of fatphobia and a subsequent surge in videos that describe how much people want their so-called “perfect” summer body. Other videos encourage disordered eating so directly that their content would be triggering to describe, and similarly receive a signifcant amount of engagement and attention. Celebrities have become notably thinner viaGLP-1 medications, originally intended for individuals with diabetes but utilized by many as a weight-loss drug. Alongside the removal of fllers and Brazilian Butt Lifts (BBLs), the cultural zeitgeist has increasingly begun to mirror that of decades prior.
Why is this occurring right now? Did the body pos itivity movement of the past 10-15 years cre ate any cultural impact, or was it all simply a progressive mask hiding a toxic, fundamen tally unchanged system beneath? While there are no defnitive answers to these questions, it seems to be an amal gamation of diferent factors that have coalesced into a kind of “perfect storm.”
The question of whether the pe riod of mainstream body posi tivity truly created any last ing social impact is complicated.
Tis movement coincided with the rise of FaceTune and increasingly unrealistic beauty expectations on social apps, as well as the glorifcation of eating disorders on Tumblr and the normalization of plastic surgeries (such as BBLs) to achieve an idealized “slim-thick” physique. Additionally, in a more general sense, the anonymity of the internet has emboldened critics online to make hateful comments, especially as it pertains to people’s appearance and bod ies. Tere has never been a safer time for cruelty on the inter net, whether it is hidden under the guise of something being a “joke” or simply said outright. Our culture, which remains hyper-focused on aesthetics and the curation of certain images/ideals online, provides the perfect ground for a resurgence of more socially-acceptable fatphobia and the excessive idolization of thin bodies.
Are Ozempic and similar medica tions the culprits? Tese drugs have certainly prompted a noticeable amount of weight loss amongst Hollywood celebrities, and it would be foolish to undervalue their infu ence on people’s self-perception and on what constitutes society’s “ideal body.” Additionally, social discourse surround ing Ozempic has further normalized discussions of people’s bodies online, particularly those of women. Anyone who loses weight is immediately met with accusations of taking Ozempic, refecting a culture that is constantly surveilling and judging diferent bodies.
It is also likely that econom ic instability and recession, coupled by a broader cultur al shift towards conserva
tive ideology, played a role in these shifts.
A study conducted by the University of Nebraska, titled “Equality in Times of Uncertainty: Economic Downturn Body Image Messaging Towards Women,” describes how economic uncertainty “facilitates a shift toward conservative notions of gender roles and an increase in conservative societal messaging,” which subsequently results in an increase in eating disorders amongst women who feel the need to better achieve society’s “ideal” thin body (7). Tere was a “positive relationship” found between unemployment rates and the rate of searches for pro-eating disorder terms (3). Te pernicious nature of increasing fatphobia and the normalization of disordered behavior can not be understated. Body dysmorphia and other related problems with body image can exacerbate mental health problems, and eating disorders are extremely dangerous for people’s mental and physical health. In particular, women are at a much higher risk for experiencing these consequences. As Luce Irigaray describes in her work, “Tis Sex Which is Not One,” women are “more or less obliging prop for the enactment of man’s fantasies” — women face constant objectifcation and commodifcation, and fatphobia serves as an efective social tool for the patriarchal regulation of women’s bodies (12). Time spent worrying about how to constantly shrink yourself diverts efort from defying systems of oppression. Our new cultural landscape is concerning, to say the least. Rather than laying down the sword and accepting these circumstances, we can fght back by calling out online trends and continuing to push for diverse body representation. Although things can seem bleak, there is always hope.
Losing Contact: Queer Body
Politics & Modern Dance
Author: Cara Lewis Art by: Noelle Blake
Design by: Idaly Barajas
Articulating Contact Improvisation
Touch is temporal: there is a beginning, the onset of contact, and the entwining of force. Tere is an end, the removal of contact, and the unraveling of balance. Touch is a personal incident that occurs within the context of a duet.1 Touch is evocative, responsive, and essential tied to the physical body.
The body is political. There are bounds on autonomy concerning intimacy, reproductive health, nutrition, and adequate healthcare. There are norms on where bodies should go, on what bodies should touch each other, on what skin types or nationalities should mix, on which assigned sexes and identities should converse. The movement and connection of bodies are politicized.
“The American life produces slaves who are unaware of the mechanism of that production. The ties that bind are the ties that bind.”2 Steve Paxton
Steve Paxton recognized this binding and the myriad of ways we recreate the constrictive power dynamics of unjust government in our smaller epochs of society. Restrictive norms pervade our social groups like fractals of repression and limitation and hierarchy. We have codifed rigid hierarchies and specifed social roles in our academic spaces, our familial spaces, and our artistic spaces. Paxton specifcally wanted to break away from the aspects of professional dance that mirrored power inequality and servitude in American Society. His strategy was to create performance space for the unbounded exploration of touch and identity through the autonomy of bodies.
Contact Improvisation was conceived and coined by Steve Paxton in 1972 (Sacro-Tomas 82) as a postmodern dance practice that adapts to decentered gravitational pulls, emphasizes intentional inertia, deals in information transmission, upends social pairings, and gives form to healthy intimacy.
In Paxton’s own words,
“Contact improvisations are spontaneous physical dialogues that range from stillness to highly energetic exchanges. Alertness is developed in order to work in an energetic state of physical disorientation, trusting in one’s basic survival instincts. It is a free play with balance, self-correcting the wrong moves and reinforcing the right ones, bringing forth a physical/emotional truth about a shared moment of movement that leaves the participants informed, centered, and enlivened.”
Contact Improvisation begins with touch and balance. Touch is a sense and an action. Tactile sense is receptive and our ability to touch others invokes both our own tactile sense and that of the recipient. Contact Improvisation relies on reciprocal touch.
Balance is a necessary component to Contact Improvisation that brings touch into focus. Balance is anything but static, though. Balance is a process of constant adaptation along an energy gradient where every slight change in touch and weight recenters the duo.
Balance is the fuid relation the body has with “that part which is a useful fulcrum, since in this world a body may as often be on head as feet and relative to the partner as often as to the foor.”3 True balance adapts to displaced centers of gravity, uncommon stabilizers, and a partner’s additional weight. Vertical alignment is not a given. Grounded feet are not a given. What you touch determines how you balance. Who you touch does too.
Once you have learned touch, you can communicate. Touching transmits information about each other’s movement and homeostasis.4
In his experimental formulation of Contact Improvisation, Paxton summarized a language of contact. “A” is active; “P” is passive; “d” is demand; “r” is response.
Ad & Pr
Ad & Ar
Pd & Ar
Pd & Pr
Ar & Ar
Ad & Ad
“No dancer or pair is confined to a certain role.”
Contact Improvisation is a conversation where these rules are fuid prose. No dancer or pair is confned to a certain role. One may actively demand and passively respond in the same phrase; “Neither person is bound to be active or passive for very long.”5 It all depends on the counterbalance and how they are also demanding and responding. Tis active role switching requires immense trust and comfort with a partner not to break boundaries or domineer the duet. But, once that trust is established and maintained, temporary role exploration can fourish. By articulating a language of dynamic partner contact, Paxton provided a way to physically discuss and explore social roles.
Contact Improvisation produces a space without directors, without choreographers, and without a solitary star. Each response and demand, be it active or passive, is the choice and prodution of the dancer.
where hierarchy is diminished and fuid role exploration occurs by way of conversing bodies. Te improvised partnership becomes a third space
Unraveling Queer Politics
Contact Improvisation makes space for queer bodies to be queer bodies when society explicitly does not. Queer politics in the United States has its fulcrum in the physical queer body. Bostock v. Clayton County, 2020, crucially extends Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity “because of sex”, that is one’s physical sex. Queerness is acknowledged by the government in the physical body. Protections and rights and recognition are tethered to queer presence but they are being unraveled by the erasure of identity through pejorative propagandizing of existence as “ideology”.
The U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission is adhering to Executive Order 14168, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”, which enforces laws by “biologically distinct” sexes.6 As a start, the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission is removing gender-neutral markings from ofcial forms and legal documentation.7 The Ofce of Personnel Management removed their written guidance for federal managers on supporting transgender federal employees. In its stead, the OPM published links to the DOJ’s statement that Title VII does not prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. Similarly, the Department of Labor removed LGBTQ+ workplace rights, resources, and advancement resources from its website.8
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention is withdrawing scientifc papers in review for publication if they contain any “gender ideology” such as mentioning the terms “gender, transgender, pregnant person, pregnant people, LGBT, transsexual, non-binary, assigned male at birth, assigned female at birth, biologically male and biologically female.”9
In 2003, the Prison Rape Elimination Act was passed to protect inmates from sexual assault and harassment. It allowed data collection, prevention, and accountability of sexual harassment that included the ability for inmates to be incarcerated in facilities that matched their gender identity. Executive order 14168 prohibits the federal Bureau of Prisons to house transgender women in women’s prisons or detention centers (including immigration centers).10
Executive order
requires single-sex sports rooms for school and
athletic associations.
Noncompliance will be met with enforcement
January 28th against a Denver high school for converting
Then on
February 11th, the Department of Education urged the NCAA to “restore to female athletes the records, titles, awards, and recognitions misappropriated by biological males competing in female categories.”15
Active Response
That aforementioned unspooling of queer living is a noncomprehensive sampling of the current reductionist climate that is not limited to the United States. Queer bodies and queer dancers are struggling to move across a widespread right-wing lean. Tara Brandel, an Irish choreographer and teacher in residence at Dance Base in Edinburgh brought together eight queer dancers from diferent countries in November of 2024 to articulate queer erasure.
Tara began the workshop by pairing each of us strangers. Tara guided us in how to learn another person’s body in relation to our own. We moved the momentum of our hands over the forearms of the partner, accelerating up slopes of shoulder blades and down the contours of muscle. We relearned to stand unifed with hips connected perpendicularly. We took turns arcing over the back of the other partner who was now our sense of ground.
Tara had us take our new knowledge into improvisation, moving together as one without verbal communication, pushing and pulling body weight and sharing gravity. A rhythm started to form and each pair constructed a phrase of two eight counts.
At the mark of an hour, we were to perform our piece that was crafted by two bodies on two bodies. But, Tara told us, as we stood before the group, that only one was to dance at a time. Suddenly, the arcs and fips and rolls and leans made sensible and possible by weight sharing and reactions and supporting a partner were stripped of that partner. Individually all eight of us performed in our partner’s absence. We struggled to adapt to the physical holes and jumped through non-existent hoops. We struggled, but we still danced.
And, then we discussed. We hashed the erasure of queer identity in dance, the stereotyped roles of support or demand connected to gender expression, the limits of queer visibility beyond capitalistic fads, the erasure of queer fgures from successful resistance movements, the surge and regression of queer rights within our lifetimes, and how to adapt. Within my conscious life, I have watched the legalization of gay marriage and then the banning of transgender girls from participating in sports. I have been optimistic and repeatedly crushed, bolstered, and then abandoned.
Tara Brandel’s workshop on Contact Improvisation created space for physical and verbal dialogue on queerness, which are being actively banned in legitimized sectors of healthcare, science, and politics. Tara’s work provides a way of relating to each other that resists political erasure.
Making Contact
Contact
Improvisation is a dance practice, a movement guide, a method of deconstructing social patterns, and the energy for collective engagement, healing, and exploratory discourse on dance. It is also a guide for establishing contact and weight-bearing with a partner, a friend, a fellow human. We have lost contact with our already limited legal supports. We are alienated from our own bodies. We must relearn our bodies and practice weight sharing with each other in community care, nonviolent protest, and physical presence.
“We have lost contact with our already limited legal supports. We are alienated from our own bodies.
We must relearn our bodies and practice weight sharing with each other in community care, nonviolent protest, and physical presence.”
[2]Paxton, Steve. “The Grand Union.” TDR 1972. 16, 3 (T55):1
[3]Paxton 1975, 40
[4]Ibid.
[5]Ibid
[6]Spiggle, Tom. “EEOC Rolls Back LGBTQ+ Protections, Raising Concerns over Civil Rights Enforcement.” Forbes, February 11, 2025. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomspiggle/2025/01/31/eeoc-halts-lgbtq-discrimination-claims-processing-what-it-means-for-workers/.
[7]Ibid.
[8]Berg, Kirsten, and Moiz Syed. “Under Trump, LGBTQ Progress Is Being Reversed in Plain Sight.” ProPublica, November 22, 2019. https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/ lgbtq-rights-rollback.
[9]Incorvaia, Darren. “Updated: CDC Withdraws New Scientifc Publications to Scrub Specifc Words: Reports.” Fierce Biotech, February 4, 2025. https://www.fercebiotech. com/research/cdc-halts-scientifc-publications-scrub-forbidden-words-report.
[10]Diaz, Jaclyn. “Trans Community Fears Trump’s Actions Will Upend Legal Precedent on Prison Protections.” NPR, January 30, 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/01/30/nx-s15277164/trump-executive-order-trans-inmates.
[11]Graves, Will. “Trump Signs Executive Order Intended to Bar Transgender Athletes from Girls’ and Women’s Sports.” AP News, February 6, 2025. https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-transgender-athletes-3606411fc12effec95a893351624e1b.
[12]“Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports.” The White House, February 5, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/keeping-men-out-of-womens-sports/.
[13]Taranto , Steven. “NCAA Adjusts Policy on Transgender Athletes after President Trump’s Executive Order.” MSN, February 6, 2025. https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/ncaa-adjusts-policy-on-transgender-athletes-after-president-trump-s-executive-order/ar-AA1yywCm?ocid=BingNewsSerp.
[14]“U.S. Department of Education Launches Investigation into Denver Public Schools for Converting Girl’s Restroom to All-Gender Facility.” U.S. Department of Education, January 28, 2025. https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/ us-department-of-education-launches-investigation-denver-public-schools-converting-girls-restroom-all-gender-facility.
[15]“U.S. Department of Education Urges the NCAA, NFHS to Restore Female Athletics Records Wrongfully Erased by Male Competitors.” U.S. Department of Education, February 11, 2025. https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-urges-ncaa-nfhs-restore-female-athletics-records-wrongfully-erased-male-competitors.
letterfrom the design leads
As we gathered together in Carpenter to begin the design process, we were seeking refuge from more than just the cold. We found ourselves sifting through the aftermath of an election that elevated xenophobic, transphobic, and sexist hatred to the highest ofce in this country. But instead of letting our hope freeze over, we came together with resilience in our community, and that has carried over even as campus begins to thaw.
While Unravel refects our fears and anxieties in this tumultuous political moment, it also suggests the potential for change, for revolution: picking up the scattered strands of the status quo and weaving them into something new and better. As a refection of this, there is a special focus on textiles, yarn, and string in this edition. Tis expansion of medium also arose through photography, where artists instead worked with light to create their pieces, and collage.
Developing the palette in the depths of winter was infuenced by the chilly, cool tones of wintry trees. In contrast, we turned to red, refecting the confict and chaos of the political moment. Tis palette represents chaos, coming undone with the hopeful possibility of putting something back together. Tese tones and their in-betweens are meant to serve as a means of deconstruction, allowing for artistic manipulation and new beginnings.
For every edition, the members of Spare Rib create a collaborative playlist that revolves around the theme of the magazine for that term. For Unravel, the playlist featured songs such as Paranoia by the Marias, Ex-Factor by Ms. Lauryn Hill, and Somebody to Love by Queen. Te wide variety of genres and artists featured just in the playlist goes to show how much each members’ interpretation of what it means to “unravel.”
As a whole, Unravel encourages our artists, writers, and designers to refect across all aspects of their lives: digging deep through grief, gender euphoria and dysphoria, political uncertainty, and more. Tis is seen throughout the magazine, with many artists taking advantage of the strong contrast between the reds and blues in the color palette and others reclaiming traditionally gendered crafts. With “care” as the runner-up theme for this edition, we are grateful to everyone who took the time to put themselves into this zine; without you, there would be nowhere from which to return.
With love,
Rachel Roncka, Lauren Kang, and Geena San Diego 25W/S Design Leads
our staff:
Abby De Leon ‘27 Community Development*
Abigail Byrne ‘28 Writing, Logistics*
Aditi Singh ‘28 Writing*
Angela Zhang ‘28 Community Development, Logistics*
Anna Costello ‘28 Writing
Anonymous Writing
Anonymous Art, Design
Anonymous Art, Design
Anonymous Art, Design, Marketing, GM*
Avery Lin ‘28 Marketing*
Cara Lewis ‘26 Writing
Claire Kovac ‘27 Writing*
Clara Schriebman ‘27 Art
Denisse Gonzalez-Marquez ‘28 Art, Design
Dayanara Martinez ‘28 Art, Logistics*
Eda Naz Gokdemir ‘25 Design, Writing*
Ella Grim ‘25 Writing, Design, Logistics*
Emma Hwang ‘28 Art, Design, Cover
Erika Sowah ‘28 Writing
Geena San Diego ‘28 Art, Design*
Henry Dorr ‘28 Art
Holly Christiansen ‘28 Design
Idaly Barajas ‘28 Art, Design, Cover
Idil Sahin ‘26 Art, Design
Lauren Kang ‘25 Art, Design*
Layla Charron ‘28 Design
Lillia Hammond TH’26 Art, Design
Maggie Emerson ‘25 Marketing*
Maeve Kenney ‘27 Special Projects
Maria Hebling ‘27 Marketing*
Nerissa Chin ‘28 Art
art: created art for articles design: created layout for page writing: authored an article *: acted as a department lead
