FEM Newsmagazine – UCLA's Feminist Newsmagazine Since 1973

Feminism 101

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…
Feminism 101: What is Himpathy?

Himpathy is a term for the cultural backlash that sympathizes with powerful men accused of sexual assault.

Theorist Thursdays

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

The Curious (and Problematic) Case of Steve Trevor in “Wonder Woman 1984”

Sometimes, it might be better for the dead to just stay dead in comics.
2020: The Year of LGBTQ+ Representation in Cartoons

If you’ve found yourself either wanting a light-hearted dose of LGBTQ+ rep mixed in with that sweet, sweet, nostalgia of cartoons look no further.
Joshi: a Love Letter to Japanese Women’s Wrestling and Its Stars

America has always had a glass ceiling for women in professional wrestling, a glass ceiling that Japanese women wrestlers have helped demolish.
What It’s Like to Watch “Happiest Season” as a Queer, Black Woman

For all the praise “Happiest Season” has earned for queer representation, however, the film is also a frustrating reminder that Hollywood and white queer filmmakers…
Welcome to the Neighborhood: What Marvel’s WandaVision Reminds Us About Sitcoms, American Suburbia, and the Treatment of Wanda Maximoff

Though it bears the familiar Marvel Studios logo, "WandaVision" is a sci-fi show all the same. Anything that looks or sounds “normal” in science fiction—…
The Misogyny of ‘I’m Thinking of Ending Things’: On Superficial Social Commentary and Women as Fantasies Not People

The film and its characters are self-aware about the misogyny in the “manic pixie dream girl” trope due to the treatment of Lucy in this…

Campus Life

Now More Than Ever, We Need Parks Equity

“Investing in parks for underrepresented youth is justice reform.”
White Feminism: An Exploration of Alma Whitaker and the White Settler Movement in Los Angeles

When Whitaker wrote about women and the empowerment of women, she wasn’t talking about all women. She was talking to and about white women only.
Dear Ms. Andry: Allyship and Mental Health

“I'm trying to learn and be a good ally, but it does take a toll on my mental health. That being said, I don't want…
The Shortcomings of Mainstream White Feminism and What We Can Do About Them

By empowering the vast diversity of feminine gender expression and not just the conventional presentation of femininity that is celebrated in our society, we can…
Abolition and Climate Justice

“If we do not end ecocidal capitalism, it will end us.”
Addressing Domestic Violence in the Classroom

How can educators support students? How can the education system support educators?

Politics

‘50 Years of Imagining Radical Feminist Futures’: UC Davis WRRC’s Panel featuring Angela Davis and adrienne maree brown

“And, you know, the best work that all of us can do is to create the terrain for a new generation to take the ideas…
Nigeria’s Movement to #EndSARS: A Struggle Against Police Brutality, State Power, and Neoliberalism

Millions across Nigeria have mobilized in demonstrations to #EndSARS, a movement aiming to end the abuses of the nation's notorious anti-robbery police unit.
As the Den of Lions Stirs Awake, India’s Descent Begins

Sikhs are far from being victims to this struggle; suppressed for the last 36 years, this community of lions has now stirred awake ready to…
Bolivia: The Election of Luis Arce and Movimento al Socialismo (MAS), a Win for Democracy

October 18 marked the landslide victory of Luis Arce in the Bolivian presidential election of 2020. The election of Arce came after the U.S.-backed military…
How Elites Weaponize Identity Politics

Elites weaponize identity politics to offer us the appearance of progress without the meaningful policy required to improve the lives of marginalized peoples. As we…
Artsakh: Indigenous Armenians Face a Second Genocide in their Homeland

Just after the centennial anniversary of the Armenian Genocide of 1915, the indigenous Armenians of the Caucasus face yet another threat of extinction as the…

Dialogue and Opinion

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.
Reflecting on Life Inside the Bubble

As women now recounting the years of religious indoctrination that happened at the hands of religious education, we are now diving into the depths of…
Individualism vs. Collectivism

The issue with the lack of empathy in individualistic societies is especially apparent now.
Leftism vs. Liberalism

Particularly in academia, we are told that higher education is the only way to gain concrete understanding of a topic, but higher education is inaccessible…
Gender Fluidity in Fashion

Styles has received much attention and support from Western media in his expression of gender fluid style. In being the first man on the magazine’s…
The Debate Around the Word “Latinx” from the Perspective of a Nonbinary Latinx Person

The changes towards gender-neutral language are an effort to, at the very least, acknowledge the existence of all people who are Latinx. On a larger…