Powerful women have never been that hard to find in the movies or on television. Often, however, they are the villainesses: the schemers, the man-stealers, glammed up to the point of caricature, like Alexis Carrington. Others have been what Susan Douglas calls “bionic bimbos”: their powers are of the super-human variety, and represent, according to Douglas, a “media compromise with feminism”
The Erasure of Hillary Clinton
March 1, 2021
Georgia’s On My Mind…
December 27, 2020
An Apology from Kentucky to Georgia
December 11, 2020
Last year, I was asked to write a preface to a forum that my former graduate students, now successful teachers and writers, had put together for the journal Frontiers. It was published in March 2019. Now, in December 2020, as I’m struggling with pandemic weight-gain, I thought others might identify. So, encouraged by Facebook friends, I’m publishing here. Please do tell your own stories in response!
One of us is “pro-choice” and Jewish. One of us is a “pro-life” Christian. We put these labels in scare quotes because we believe it’s time to get beyond labels and move forward on our common humanity. Branding others is Trump territory. We refuse to go there. And we refuse to let our differences blind us to our shared commitment to defeating Donald Trump — a man who violates both of our traditions. Bill Clinton recently said, of Ruth Bader Ginsberg: “She was not a woman to be labelled.” She was clearly not a woman to label others, either. Following her example, we have looked beyond each other’s labels and discovered that despite the political rhetoric that would thrust us on opposing sides of a divide, we share a great deal.