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: Sara Ahmed

Sara Ahmed is a British-Australian author who describes herself as a “feminist killjoy, affect alien, [and] angry queer woman of color.” Ahmed's work focuses on…

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

Being Lolita – FEMoir Series

It’s frightening when your perception clashes with reality in a sharp, electric flash of clarity and anxiety. You're terrified that things will be different; that…
Fame Is Prison: Parasocial Relationships & Marginalized Identities

On February 24th, 2022, Mistki composed a Twitter thread in an attempt to communicate an intricate set of feelings to her fans and concert-goers.
Love in the Time of Reality Television

One of love’s most outstanding qualities is its timelessness. We can observe the triumphing powers of love throughout the entirety of culture, history, and literature……
The Evolution of Lego

Behind all of the happy childhood memories that are represented by the Lego corporation, there exists an intriguing representation of the shifting of cultural paradigms.…
The Other Woman

The sheer existence and popularization of the term “the other woman” is an outlet for general society to fixate anger on women to cope. It’s…
Recasting the Spotlight: Meet Laura Wong

Even in instances where Asian people and cultures are being depicted on screen, we are not being hired in positions of power to be a…

Campus Life

Armenian Genocide Commemoration Week

This week, the UCLA Armenian Student Association will be holding events on campus as part of Armenian Genocide Commemoration week.
The Future of Disability Studies: Afrofuturism, Literary Criticism, and the Intersection of Blackness and Disability

In this virtual event, Therí Pickens discussed her new book, Black Madness: Mad Blackness, in which she aims to “disrupt the idea that Blackness and…
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…

Politics

The Republican Culture War on LGBTQ+ Youth

From the “Don’t Say Gay Bill” to the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” 2022 has seen an overwhelming increase in state legislation filed to promote anti-LGBTQ+…
Show’s Over: Ending The Miserable Cycle of LA Politics

Mejia reveals a unique talent for bridging the gap between big data and normal people, based on his firm belief that the people, empowered with…
Meet Kenneth Mejia, the Candidate Running for L.A. Controller on a Radical Platform: Doing His Job

“Your generation has the most to benefit from a city watchdog, especially when it comes to issues like the environment. We’re endorsed by so many…
The Russia-Ukraine War Has Exacerbated The United States’ Hypocrisy Problem

This sudden desire to unequivocally help refugees is great, but given past relations between the United States and refugees, it is impossible to avoid the…
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…

Dialogue and Opinion

Gender Beyond LGBTQ+ Labels

Modern LGBTQ+ discourse has advanced gender inclusivity, but more attention should be drawn to gender across different cultures.
Polari: Language and Queer Identity

Bona to vada your dolly old eek!
Feminist Theorist Thursdays: Sonia Sanchez

“I wanted to tell people how I became this woman with razor blades between her teeth.”
The De-sexification of the Green M&M

We mourn the loss of boots and also the loss of accountability for substandard business actions.
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…

Arts and Creative

Rat on Polished Wood

I let the silence boil as I pick mismatched graphic tees off…
I Lost My Virginity and I Don’t Know Where It Went

Im going to spoil.
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…