Posts Tagged “
Identity
”The Brave New World Of Gender Nonconformity: Pregnant Men
The concept of gender in mainstream culture is becoming less conservative by the day. Of course it's not like being at Smith, but when Benny Ninja can vogue his little butt off on a graffiti-ed stage with a bunch of drag queens during prime time and no one bats an eyelash, you know things have come pretty far since Leave it to Beaver. One of the last truly gendered events is pregnancy — unless you're Thomas Beatie. Thomas is a man, and he's knocked up. Well more specifically, Thomas is biologically a woman, but he decided to go through gender reassignment. Getting down to the nuts (heh) and bolts of it, Thomas took testosterone and had his breasts removed, but he kept the vagina. His partner, Nancy, is unable to bear children, and because the pair really wanted a biological baby, Thomas went off his bi-monthly testosterone injections and after a few harrowing attempts, is now expecting a baby girl in July. More »
identity politics
Will Feminists And Oprah Winfrey Help Obama Win The Oval Office?
The New York Times was deep in the throes of Obamamania this weekend, with four separate articles discussing Barack's candidacy, from Oprah's endorsement to his chances against the dynamic duo of Bill and Hillary. The most interesting of the bunch describes Obama's feminist pitch, i.e., how he plans on stealing some of the pro-female vote away from Hillary Clinton. While heralding the historic nature of Hillary's run, the article suggests that Obama is simultaneously trying to show female voters that he's the more "feminist" candidate because of his personal history. "I know what it's like to be raised by a single mom who's trying to work and go to school and raise two kids at the same time, doesn't have any support from the father," the Illinois senator has said. "These are issues I'm passionate about." All the same, recent polls show that more black women support Clinton than Obama by a margin of 15 points, largely because they loved Bill, the man novelist Toni Morrison called "Our first black president." More »
identity politics
Do Black Voters Favor Hillary Because They've Been "Oppressed"?
Another weekend, another barrage of stories by starry-eyed journalists on the all the American constituents who are just left absolutely starry-eyed by Barack Hussein Obama. Last week it was foreign policy wonks, this week it's college student bloggers and, according to Vanity Fair, Julia Roberts. So what's with his poor polling with black voters? Michelle Obama told Mika Brzezinski over the weekend she thinks black voters favor Hillary because "there's always that doubt in the back of the minds of people of color. People who've been oppressed and haven't been given real opportunities. That you never really believe. That you believe that somehow, someone is better than you. You know, deep down inside, you doubt whether you can do it, because that's all you've been told, is 'no, wait.'" More »
sexual identity









