There’s been more talk about purity balls after this recent article in TIME magazine. Purity balls are wedding-like parties for fathers and daughters where daughters vow to their dads that they will remain “pure” by abstaining from sex before marriage, and the dads vow to protect their chastity. (I say wedding-like because there’s often a […]

I noticed an uncanny amount of weight-loss ads on Facebook bombarding me with buy-this-because-you’re-too-fat! messages. And so when Feministing informed me that Facebook tailors weight-loss ads to its female subscribers, I unchecked the “female” box on my profile. And indeed, I find that my Facebook account is no longer inundated with you’re-too-fat! ads. So, for […]

The Real Price of Prisons: The Michigan Independent has been at the forefront in bringing you news about local organizing efforts against the prison industrial complex. Please bring your attention to the latest issue of Mother Jones, which contains a series of articles about how America’s prison system is wreaking havoc within our nation’s economy.
Shackling […]

Brian Dickerson from the Detroit Free Press wrote a great opinion piece (”Exclusion looks even dumber now“) about why Michigan is shooting itself in the foot with its behind-the-times legislations and legislators on LGBT rights.

Pick up the latest issue of the American Prospect for in-depth analysis on the issue of women and politics. Ann Friedman wrote the cover story “Beyond Hillary: Strengths in Numbers“.
Many have described the primary season as revolutionary–the fact that a black candidate and a woman candidate could viably hold the highest office in our nation […]

Find buying coffee confusing? What does”Fair Trade”, “Utz certified” or “Rainforest Alliance Certified” really mean anyway? Where can you buy good tasting, environmentally sound and labor friendly coffee? The blog Imagined-Community provides readers with a super-thorough and easy-to-understand guide to buying coffee.
I currently get my coffee from Pura Vida, which is “fair trade” certified, but […]

Female soldiers have been returning from Iraq with not only combat-related trauma, but also with deep emotional wounds from their experiences of sexual assault within the military. “Nearly a third of female veterans say they were sexually assaulted or raped while in the military, and 71 percent to 90 percent say they were sexually harassed […]

In the last issue of the Independent, Zach Martin wrote on the legality and morality of the CIA’s treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo.
Today, the New York Times breaks a disturbing story. According to the story, the CIA’s current interrogation methods were taken by verbatim from an Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during […]