by Anya Josephs You might have heard of Mary Lambert, or maybe not. You’ve probably heard her—she is the woman’s voice in the chorus of Macklemore’s song “Same Love.” I have a lot of complicated feelings about “Same Love.” Although I think the song’s message in favor of same-sex marriage is important, the line “if…
by Anya Josephs Recently, Angelina Jolie wrote a pretty interesting op-ed about her decision to have a preventative double mastectomy. The surgeries she had took several months and were painful and expensive, but not nearly as painful as having life-threatening breast cancer. Without this surgery, she would have had an 87% chance of developing breast…
by Anya Josephs There’s a medicine that, in half a century of use, has been linked to a grand total of zero deaths or serious complications. It’s safer than aspirin. Physicians willingly admit that their advice is not needed for it to be taken correctly. The largest organization of pediatricians in the nation is urging…
by Anya Josephs Seth McFarlane has been repeatedly called an “edgy” choice for an Oscars host. The Onion brands itself as a daring, controversial form of satire, steadfastly refusing ‘to knuckle under to pressure from the community.’ Unfortunately, there is nothing edgy, nothing daring, and nothing unique about an hours-long fest of sexist, racist, and objectifying “jokes,” comments,…
by Anya Josephs Our society sees sexuality as something exclusively male. Women are expected to perform sexuality—to discuss sex, to look sexy, to have sex—but only and always for male pleasure. Female queerness subverts this. Women loving other women are clearly not doing it for men—there are no men involved. So our society has to…
Is the word “bitch” acceptable? Kanye West posted a flurry of tweets on September 2nd examining his use of the word. He just wanted to think out loud with us today. So Kanye, here’s what we, the girls of SPARK, think about the word “bitch.” YingYing: As with any other word, “bitch” can only have…
by Anya Josephs Young women hear a lot of messages coming from the media, and most of aren’t very positive. Three in four girls feel worse about themselves after reading fashion magazines. A 1996 study found that teen girls’ exposure to certain types of TV programming affected their body dissatisfaction. Watching TV lowers the self-esteem…