Empowered Bleeders and Cranky Menstruators: Menstrual Positivity and the “Liberated” Era of New Menstrual Product Advertisements

Przybylo and Fahs examine a series of new menstrual product advertisements, arguing that they push consumer capitalist goals of selling menstrual gear with an “empowered” message at the expense of co-opting feminist discourses of body and menstrual positivity. Drawing on feminist menstrual scholarship, they argue that menstrual positivity is thinned and transformed when commodified. They argue that “positivity”—while important to feminist menstrual activism, praxis, and theorizing—is easily co-optable within neoliberal marketing cultures. While the authors acknowledge the importance of affirmative messaging, they nevertheless develop a “menstrual crankiness” that draws on positivity but also holds it critically at bay. Aligned with queer theoretical work on the political import of negative affects, they assert the importance of menstrual crankiness in pushing at sexist, transphobic, ableist, and white discourses around bodies and embodiment, arguing that menstrual crankiness is vital to thinking about the material pains and pleasures of menstrual bleeding

Students for Peace: Contextual and Framing Motivations of Antiwar Activism

This article traces the development of peace activism among undergraduate social work students. In doing so, it explores how social statuses, political contexts, and collective action frames affect the likelihood of joining the movement against the Afghanistan war (2001 to current). After analyzing data from a multicampus sample of Bachelors in Social Work (BSW) students (n = 159), results show that peace activism was predicted by level of education as well as perceptions of proper foreign policy, the relative efficacy of social movement tactics, and identification with specific activist ideals. Finally, being situated in activist networks fostered greater peace activism while the ascribed statuses of race, class, and gender were poor predictors of peace activism

Transnational engagements: cultural and religious practices related to menstruation

This transnational engagement brings together participants from various cultural and religious backgrounds in a dialogue about menstrual practices. They are asked to consider their own experiences with these practices and reflect on how the practices have affected them. The discussion makes clear that participants have varying understandings and views of traditional menstrual practices, and that these views often challenge the common depiction of traditional practices as restrictions that are forced upon women

Post-postfeminism? New feminist visibilities in postfeminist times

This article contributes to debates about the value and utility of the notion of postfeminism for a seemingly “new” moment marked by a resurgence of interest in feminism in the media and among young women. The paper reviews current understandings of postfeminism and criticisms of the term’s failure to speak to or connect with contemporary feminism. It offers a defence of the continued importance of a critical notion of postfeminism, used as an analytical category to capture a distinctive contradictory-but-patterned sensibility intimately connected to neoliberalism. The paper raises questions about the meaning of the apparent new visibility of feminism and highlights the multiplicity of different feminisms currently circulating in mainstream media culture – which exist in tension with each other. I argue for the importance of being able to “think together” the rise of popular feminism alongside and in tandem with intensified misogyny. I further show how a postfeminist sensibility informs even those media productions that ostensibly celebrate the new feminism. Ultimately, the paper argues that claims that we have moved “beyond” postfeminism are (sadly) premature, and the notion still has much to offer feminist cultural critics

The Weight of Trash: Teaching Sustainability and Ecofeminism by Asking Undergraduates to Carry Around Their Own Garbage

This essay outlines a recent assignment I designed for an upper-division cross-listed women and gender studies/social justice and human rights course I teach called, “Trash, Freaks, and SCUM.”  In the context of the students reading Edward Humes’ (2012) Garbology, the trash bag assignment asked that students carry around their trash for two 48-hour periods and that they present it to the class.  While the first two day period assesses their actual trash output, students are asked to produce as little trash as possible for the second two day period. This assignment aims to make trash visible and to help students learn about climate change, sustainability, conspicuous consumption, and how their individual carbon footprint contributes to the “big picture” of environmental strain.  I describe this assignment and its goals in this essay, followed by an assessment of its role in teaching about social justice, in order to underscore the importance of experiential learning with trash and to highlight how this assignment fits the mission of my courses on feminism and social justice