Films in the past have overwhelmingly perpetuated two paradoxical perceptions of women: the Charlie’s Angels-style seductive and naïve-yet-smart female; or the infamous Miranda Priestly’s vicious bulldog persona (from The Devil Wears Prada). Sarah Palin underscored the pervasiveness of these two stereotypes when she married them, offering the public her own self-designed portrait as a “pitbull […]

Recently, there has been a surge of “feminist” videos and lyrics in pop culture.  This effort to incorporate messages surrounding the role of women in society into mass media has been received by an audience far broader than the traditional women’s studies set. These videos can also be viewed as a commentary on women’s lives […]

Google’s 2013 public release of the wearable technology Google Glass has added another dimension to the way we, as humans, use and integrate technology into our everyday lives.  “The Glass” is part of a new line of immersive technologies that seamlessly integrates with its wearers’ experiences of the world.  For example, instead of having to […]

If you haven’t seen it yet, you should.  I’m talking about a clip from American Ninja Warrior.  And this clip matters, not just to those of us who might treat shows like this as a guilty pleasure.  Because Kacy Catanzaro, and the incredible physical feat she accomplishes, matters. She’s tiny.  Physically tiny.  Five feet tall.  […]

Last week, a federal judge in New York ordered that notice of a lawsuit under the federal Equal Pay Act be sent to at least 7,000 female employees at KPMG—one of the nation’s “Big 4” tax, audit and accounting firms.  The lawsuit details how KPMG illegally paid female professionals less than it paid men for […]

“I love my trade very much. I love watching nothing become something.” — Mary Battle, quoted in “Women in Construction: Still Breaking Ground.” Sometimes there are glass ceilings so far from our field of focus that we fail to see them at all.  A report published by the National Women’s Law Center last month analyzes […]

The new Always commercial that’s garnered a lot of internet attention over the past week does an important thing—it successfully highlights how thoughtless gender stereotypes can be.  The ad and the Like a Girl campaign are part of an effort “to make sure that girls everywhere keep their confidence throughout puberty and beyond.”  (And yes, […]