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image of a woman in black lingerie with a jackolantern on her head
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How Halloween Costumes Became a Lesson in the Male Gaze

Photo by Daniel Lincoln on Unsplash It’s almost impossible to walk into a Halloween store without stumbling into a wall of sequins, corsets, and miniskirts. Somewhere between the Mean Girls “I’m a mouse, duh” reference and today’s TikTok trends, women’s Halloween costumes became almost exclusively about how much skin they reveal—no matter the character. Nurse?...

A photo of a modern witch in a black witch hate, holding a basket and a bundle of sage
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The History of Witchcraft and the Invention of the “Subhuman Woman”

Photo by Ksenia Yakovleva on Unsplash “When a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil.” — common proverb in early modern Europe, quoted in Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici Witches have been burned at the stake, cast as villains, glamorized on screen, turned into Halloween costumes, and sold back to us as empowerment merchandise....

a shadowy photo of a girl wearing a cream colored tank top
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Back to School, Back to Policing Girls’ Bodies: The Feminist Problem with Dress Codes

Photo by Viktor Talashuk on Unsplash As the smell of fresh pencils, pumpkin spice, and anxiety wafts through the air, another back-to-school ritual returns like clockwork: the enforcement of school dress codes. On paper, these policies are meant to “create a distraction-free learning environment.” In practice? They overwhelmingly target girls, reinforcing harmful ideas about modesty,...

Editorial-style portrait of a person in glittery makeup embodying experimental LGBTQ+ fashion and camp style. The image uses long exposure to highlight vibrant color, movement, and euphoria. With dramatic lighting and theatrical makeup, the photo celebrates gay pride and gender performance, blending film aesthetics, party culture, and non-normative style in a glamorous, high-energy scene.
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What is Camp? The History and Evolution of a Queer Aesthetic

Photo by Tide_trasher_x on Unsplash “Camp” is one of those words we often hear but struggle to define. Is it glitter? Is it drag? Is it kitsch? Is it just bad taste turned good? The truth is, camp has a long, rich history that’s deeply rooted in queer aesthetics, theatricality, and a rejection of traditional...

What is Feminism?
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What is Feminism?

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash What is feminism? Feminism is a belief system, a movement, a piece of history, and so much more. Throughout the course of this semester, we have studied feminism, discussing feminist scholars, visual media, and our own experiences as women. Feminism is a commonly misunderstood movement, as some people don’t...

Free speech tastes better than cupcakes
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Free speech tastes better than cupcakes

In light of the “Canisius Cupcake Wars” published a few months ago, Brianna Nosal and I want to give the opinion of Canisius’ pro-choice students who attended the Plan B event. We would like to mention that while I have been awarded for my abortion activism on campus, the Canisius University Griffin Newspaper is still...

Cyberfeminism and the Digitized Zine Movement
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Cyberfeminism and the Digitized Zine Movement

Photo by Sinitta Leunen on Unsplash Third and Fourth Wave Feminism are academically argued waves of feminism, as their qualities aren’t as apparent as First and Second Wave Feminism. In this post, I will dive into the concepts of zines and how digital zines and social media have impacted Fourth Wave Feminism in the 2010s...