Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
In the days after Rolling Stone’s University of Virginia rape story blew up in its face, both liberal and conservative finger-waggers agreed that Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s journalistic transgression would almost certainly make things more difficult for the “real” victims. They were right. After months of widespread coverage of sexual assault allegations at Columbia, this week…
The internet has made everybody audible. And, as a result, anybody can become a victim of a pitchfork-wielding mob, if you happen to say something online that the mob wants silenced. Nowhere has this reality been clearer than in the backlash against nascent feminism on Twitter. Simply sharing an anecdote or observation has become an…
The anger directed at HBO’s The Newsroom in December in the wake of an episode that attempted to capitalize on the debate surrounding the scourge of college sexual assault crystallized the complexity of emotions surrounding the very complicated issue plaguing campuses nationwide. At the time, the Rolling Stone/UVA debacle was dominating headlines — a magazine…
Could the Feminist Ryan Gosling meme be a secret weapon in the struggle for gender equality? Realistically, exposing men to a smattering of feminist theory superimposed onto photos of Gosling’s smoldering gaze and smoldering-er abs isn’t going to undo centuries of patriarchy. But a studyby two PhD students at the University of Saskatchewan suggests that, oddly…
On June 30th, 1974, Alberta Williams King was gunned down while she played the organ for the “Lord’s Prayer” at Ebenezer Baptist Church. As a Christian civil rights activist, she was assassinated…just like her son, Martin Luther King, Jr. But most people remember only one. Until a month ago, I was one of those people….
Entry Text Out of all the controversial ads that aired during the Super Bowl, the one that may have spurred the most vocal backlash was the one that promoted gender equality.The original “Like A Girl” spot, which first aired in June 2014, featured people being asked to throw, run and fight “like a girl.” Instead…
Paul Nungesser was cleared of a rape charge but faced a harsh trial-by-media. Now, as new details come to light, he’s speaking out and fighting back. The Columbia University senior vividly remembers the day, in April 2013, when he received a phone call while working in the school’s digital architecture lab. It was the campus…
In May of last year, I took a trip to Nevada to report a profile of a political candidate. After a three-hour interview with my subject, a member of her communications team suggested we go to lunch. Midway through, I jumped up from the table and ran toward the restaurant’s bathroom. I was unable to…
Ed. note: This post was originally published on the Community site. Anyone paying attention to the world of pop culture knows that it’s a hostile one, with feuds and rivalries between artists being the norm. When it comes to relationships between female artists, infamous Twitter battles between Iggy Azalea and Azealia Banks and notorious showdowns between…
Over the past two years, Shanley Kane achieved a kind of celebrity on Twitter, where, as @shanley, she claimed to be leading a crusade for women in tech. But now some people wonder if the whole thing was a massive hoax. What’s most interesting is that, whether she intended to or not, Kane pioneered a…