You’ve already read about the time my Tinder date pulled out a gun, but that night was relatively late in my Tinder “career.” Before I even considered meeting anyone I met on the app, I flicked through a ton of guys and had conversations with a good handful. A lot of those people were really…
Pop culture loves to glorify men who love their women au naturale (Drake and Bruno Mars, anyone?). In response, researchers in the UK have studied this preference. The study is problematic: small sample, biased methodology, condescending analysis of the results. The comments section emphasizes that women don’t necessarily wear makeup to please men. Instead, many commenters argue,…
Last week I wrote about the Bechdel test, which asks a few basic questions about any given movie to begin evaluating feminine roles in film. Women, however, aren’t the only underrepresented and compartmentalized group in the mainstream American film industry. While modern laws prevent discrimination in workplaces and schools based on age, race/national origin/ethnic background, religion,…
Think about the last movie you saw. Were there two or more female characters? Did they talk to each other about something besides men? The Bechdel test, created by Alison Bechdel, examines female roles in movies by asking three questions: Are there two or more women in the film? Do they talk to each other?…
It’s been a long time since I’ve been asked, “What’d you learn in school today, Sabina?” It’s a question that I don’t think should disappear as we age into high school and college. We should always be sharing things we’ve learned, discussing their implications, thinking critically about their importance or lack thereof. Today in my Basic…
I’m pretty trusting of people on the Internet. I successfully traveled from Boston to Ithaca with Zimride. I’ve used Craigslist to get babysitting and petsitting jobs. I looked for VidCon roommates using Facebook. Last November I arranged to stay for four days with a YouTube friend I’d never met. So when my friend encouraged me to download Tinder, an app…
So you’ve decided you are going to travel to Europe this summer. Congrats! Maybe you’re not the 1%, but you’re at least part of the wealthiest 5% of Americans. You deserve to celebrate that. Here’s how. First, fly to one of Europe’s capital cities. It doesn’t really matter which one, everything in Europe is just old churches anyway.…
What does Europe have that the United States doesn’t? Bidets, Magnum ice cream bars, and towns like Óbidos, Portugal. I’m not sure whether there’s less tourism to the U.S. or whether it’s just different tourism. Our big cities are much more spread out, plus our shorter history yields fewer noteworthy sites for tourists to visit. In Europe, small towns thrive…
Last night, I discovered the #YesAllWomen hashtag on Twitter. I have never seen 140 characters at a time be used so powerfully. haven't thought about anything important today? read the #YesAllWomen tag. or I'll just retweet them all for you. — Sabina (@submurina) May 25, 2014 There’s been a lot of debate about hashtag activism recently,…
Tourist. Usually the word comes from our mouths in a nasty tone, more spat than spoken. We look down on the people who aren’t assimilated into our own cultures, who represent elsewheres instead of heres. Yet being a tourist isn’t a bad thing. It means you are willing to admit your lack of knowledge about…
Victim to Charm 