Photo by Luke Miller on Unsplash Folklore, Fear, and Feminist Lessons from Brave and Beyond Recently, the internet has been ablaze with a strange but telling question: If you had to be alone in the woods, would you rather encounter a man or a bear? Overwhelmingly, women are choosing the bear. Why? Because while a...
Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash When the mpox virus (formerly called monkeypox) started spreading in 2022, the headlines came quickly — and so did the stigma. Within weeks, mainstream outlets and social media users alike were calling it a “gay disease,” repeating the same tired script used during the AIDS crisis. Once again, queer...
Photo by Ivan Skorovarov on Unsplash When we talk about extremist groups, we often focus on ideology: white supremacy, Christian nationalism, conspiracy theories, or militant patriotism. But underneath these political and religious narratives lies something more insidious: toxic masculinity. The language, rituals, and recruitment strategies of groups like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three...
Photo by Teslariu Mihai on Unsplash Existentialist philosophers remind us that human beings often choose comfort over conflict. To live in bad faith, as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir argue, is to surrender freedom for the security of familiarity. Instead of embracing responsibility for our choices, we cling to patterns and roles that feel...
Photo by Ksenia Yakovleva on Unsplash Halloween, for many, is a night of costumes, candy, and carved pumpkins. But before plastic pumpkins and fun-size chocolate bars, there was Samhain—a sacred Celtic festival marking the end of the harvest and the beginning of the darker half of the year. This ancient holiday wasn’t just a seasonal...
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?...
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....
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,...
Photo by Batu Gezer on Unsplash Scrolling through TikTok or Instagram Reels, it’s hard to miss the captions: “I’m just a girl 🥺” — as someone admits to skipping work responsibilities or spending the day in bed.“Girl dinner ✨” — a plate of crackers, cheese cubes, and maybe a pickle, framed like a quaint lifestyle...
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...