FEM Newsmagazine – UCLA's Feminist Newsmagazine Since 1973

Feminism 101

Feminism 101: Misogynoir

In 1851, Sojourner Truth asked, “Ain’t I a woman?” Ever since race was conceptualized, Black women have wondered what makes them different from other women. Why is Black womanhood discredited? Why do Black women have…
Feminism 101: What is Greenwashing?

While large corporations label themselves as “green,” people, communities, and ecosystems are suffering.
Feminism 101: What is Heteronormativity?

Heteronormative society ingrains the prejudice or dislike of people who are ‘different.’ Due to gender roles within heteronormativity, it is ‘natural’ to assume that if someone does not fit in one category, they must be…
Feminism 101: What is Environmental Racism?

Within the world of social media, the scrutiny we place on individuals' choices alienates people who aren’t able to be vegan, zero-waste, or adopt other inaccessible lifestyle changes. The people who are able to participate…

Theorist Thursdays

Feminist Theorist Thursdays: Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde was a Black poet, feminist, and activist who wrote and spoke powerfully about race, gender, sexuality, and class.

Feminist Theorist Thursdays: Fawn Brodie

Fawn McKay Brodie (1915-1981) was one of the first women to become a tenured professor at UCLA, a controversial biographer, and a noted ex-member of…

Feminist Theorist Thursdays: Kate Millett

Kate Millett (1934-2017) was an American feminist theorist, activist, writer, educator and filmmaker. Her main areas of interest were mental health reform, human rights advocacy…

Feminist Theorist Thursdays: bell hooks

Image from Wikimedia Commons. bell hooks is a Black feminist theorist, professor, and cultural critic who has authored over 30 books, in addition to dozens…

Feminist Theorist Thursdays: Mitsuye Yamada

Mitsuye Yamada is a Japanese American writer, educator, and activist. Her works expose the discrimination faced by Japanese Americans during and after World War II,…

Feminist Theorist Thursdays: Angela Davis

Davis has since become the figurehead for the prison abolition movement, a movement that calls into question what it means to be a criminal within…

Feminist Theorist Thursdays: Patricia Hill Collins

Patricia Hill Collins is an acclaimed social theorist known for her intersectional approach to the sociologies of feminism, Black liberation, and nationalism.

Feminist Theorist Thursdays: Gayatri Spivak

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is an Indian scholar who continues to add to many academic disciplines. She is known mainly for her work in post-colonial studies,…

Feminist Theorist Thursdays: Simone de Beauvoir

“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” This provocative assertion from Simone de Beauvoir’s acclaimed book, “The Second Sex,” helped destroy the notion…

Feminist Theorist Thursdays: Adrienne Rich

In her letter to the NEA chair, Rich stated: “There is no simple formula for the relationship of art to justice. But I do know…

Feminist Theorist Thursdays: Gloria Anzaldúa

Throughout her lifetime of writing, Anzaldúa consistently contributed to theories countering social oppression, spanning topics that encompassed her intersectional identities. She let her spirituality and…

Feminist Theorist Thursdays: Assata Shakur

A teacher, healer, freedom fighter, and aunt to hip hop legend Tupac, Assata Shakur has organized against the prison-industrial complex, police brutality, discriminatory education, poverty,…

Feminist Theorist Thursdays: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Adichie, a Nigerian novelist, is one of the latest women to join the lineage of iconic feminist writers like Maya Angelou, Adrienne Rich and Toni…

Feminist Theorist Thursdays: Judith Butler

In her 1988 essay “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution,” Judith Butler—philosopher, gender theorist, and professor at UC Berkeley—proposed the theory that gender is behavior, rather…

Feminist Theorist Thursdays: Kimberlé Crenshaw

Crenshaw’s great theoretical contribution, that of intersectionality, is a call to action at every moment. In light of the Trump regime’s past few weeks in…

Feminist Theorist Thursdays: Susan McClary

Susan McClary is one of the most important musicologists responsible for introducing feminist critique to musicology. Her work, though controversial, was some of the first…

Feminist Theorist Thursdays: Cynthia Enloe

Cynthia Enloe’s book was and is part of the movement to open political spaces to women, deconstructing the exclusionary structure of international relations. This remains…

Gendertainment

“All About Love” by bell hooks

Post-All About Love, it was like everything I had known before shifted: love now became an intersection with feminism, capitalism, the patriarchy, and even family.…
The Revolution Will Not Be Aestheticized

While many of the social media posts made during the Black Lives Matter movement were not made with ill intent, there is real harm in…
How Not to Talk About the Climate Crisis (or, a Review of “Don’t Look Up”)

McKay’s latest satire doesn’t just hold a mirror up to society. Rather, it asks a bunch of famous white people to take turns holding said…
“Encanto” – An Unlikely Disney Story

It was week 2 when my roommates and I played “Encanto’s” nationally beloved song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” three times into the night
4 Books by Black Authors You Should Read

Representation matters. What we read, who we see on the big screen, and the voices we listen to shape who we are and how we…
Casual Posting on Instagram Isn’t Actually Casual

In recent years, the Instagram community has collectively decided to reject this formal style and instead attempt to return to its roots through a phenomenon…

Campus Life

DRAG BONANZA EXTRAVAGANZA: A Celebration of BIPOC Drag Artistry

Photo courtesy of Andrew Skrobak. Image Description: Miss Shu Mai is shown performing in front of the audience. Beauty, artistry, talent, and activism filled the…
A Guide to Composting While Living in Westwood

Image Description: A green and pink graphic which reads “compost hub.” Various doodles of plants, hands, and greenery are included. Faded words read “Mark hosts…
ALOK Tackles Texas, Trauma, and Trans-Resistance through Stand-Up Comedy

Image description: ALOK, an individual with pink hair wearing a pink and blue dress, sit in front of a plant. They are smiling and holding…
Strike For Our Safety — Protesting the Push for In-Person Classes

Image Description: A screenshot of a post from @uclapresident on Instagram. The post has white lettering on a black background and reads “‘Have Fun Until…
Intentional Storytelling: Global Identity in Film and Popular Culture

“Storytelling is a place where people learn”
UCLA’s Disabilities Studies Inclusion Labs Explores the Future of Disability in Academia

Image Description: Four individuals are featured on a zoom call. They are smiling. The individual in the upper right hand corner is highlighted, with her…

Politics

Gender Identity In South Asia: Who Are the Hijra?

While the Hijra and transgender communities have contributed to the LGBTQ+ movement in South Asia through their lived histories and experiences, more work is to…
Purple-Washing: Israel’s Faux Feminism Through the Lens of Medical Apartheid

For a state that boasts of its progress in gender equality, it is startling to see Israel’s continued violations of the rights and dignity of…
You can’t freeze Olympic LGBTQ+ expression

Whilst both Ireen Wüst and Timothy LeDuc belong to the LGBTQ+ community, they use their Olympic platform for advocacy in very different ways. This contrast…
Democracy Dies With Paywalls

If news sources are not accessible to the masses, the media no longer works for the people, but rather for the highly-educated and well-off elite.
Guns Protect the Cis-Male Ego More Than Actual People

Guns are tools that protect masculine fragility and actively target women.
The Debate of Teaching Critical Race Theory in K-12 Schools

Misinformation and American ideals of patriotism have contributed to the debate over the teaching of critical race theory in K-12 schools and the passing of…

Dialogue and Opinion

Starter’s Guide to the Alpha Male Podcast

The latest social media trend is finally creating space for straight white men like us to be heard. Tiktok and Youtube have become safe havens…
Butterfly: The Orientalist Queer Critique

Butterfly: a beautiful, exotic, delicate, docile, innocent, sexual, and submissive East Asian “woman”. She’s everything a man could desire in a wife. Spoiler alert: she’s…
Robot Boyfriend

“A few of the boys in my CS class have offered to help me with this problem set, but I can't tell them that I'm…
Dissociative Feminism: A New Era of Romanticizing Women’s Mental Health Issues

We are now witnessing a new, modern surge of feminine misery across social media. This phenomenon has been dubbed “dissociative feminism”
The #AbolishGreekLife Movement

The time has come to acknowledge the deeply rooted racism, classism, sexism, and violence at the center of higher education.
Girlbossing Spirituality

“Haldi ka doodh is now the golden milk latte mix sold on Amazon by Kirstens and Emilys without a trace of the brown parents that…

Arts and Creative

Ladyfinger

Sweep and wipe and hunger. Sing yourself into a special little frenzy.
afternoon tea

like a babe the little cup of tea is cradled sugar sipped…
There is you.

There is you. And nothing more.
Perceptions

My conscious streams A foggy contradiction Sweaty palms on the floors, knees…
inheritances

Her mother was always warning her to stay clear of vampires or…
Kit to Make a Perfect You

YOU* are gorgeous.