When Janis Ian’s hit record, “Society’s Child,” hit the airwaves in the late 1960s it was like a shock wave. A young woman was singing out loud about an interracial romance between two teens that’s doomed because of the bigotry around them. At the height of the Civil Rights movement the song was a voice...
Like most women living in urban areas I live with an unconscious (usually) anxiety about rape. In 1989 in NYC the crime rate was horrendous; notonly did the ‘city never sleep’ muggers and rapists seemed to work on perpetual overtime. Women looked over our shoulders just going down to get the mail. When a young...
Sometime in the late 1960s I fell in love with Gloria Richardson. To be precise I fell in love with a picture of her from 1964 and what it represented for me: direct and fierce action from a woman of color. I found the picture when doing photographic research for a television show for which...
Late in her life Jennifer Lee Worth wrote three books about her life as a midwife/nurse in the 1950s in London’s poverty ravaged East End. The books, “Call the Midwife,” “Shadows of the Workhouse” and “Farewell to The East End” are a kind of 20th century mirror of the conditions written about by Charles Dickens. ...
Beginning with the film Boys Don’t Cry actor Hilary Swank has continued to play characters who won’t settle for living half a life; people who risk everything to be full human beings. The Brandon Teena role, based on a true and tragic story of a young woman who lived as a boy, represented a major...
When she heard, my friend, poet Cheryl Clarke, called me from Jersey City at about 5:45 in the morning because she needed to talk to someone else who knew Adrienne Rich as she did. She needed to talk to someone on the West Coast, the place from which Adrienne left our world. It was as...
A couple of years ago some women put together a program celebrating Audre Lorde and Pat Parker and I had the pleasure of doing some remembering out loud in front of about 1000 people. They were almost all women, those who knew the two writers mostly through their work. But Audre had been my friend…we...
“I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” James Baldwin I read that quote when I was much younger and it really framed how I think of political activity. Coming of age during the Viet Nam war, I...
Barbara Grier (left, shown with partner Donna McBride) passed away November 10 at the age of 79…young from my perspective, but obviously an elder in the world of lesbians and of publishing. Her history will be written in essays and PhD theses still to come, but a glimpse reveals: she was one of the editors...
Phyllis Lyon and The Temperamentals New Conservatory Theatre, which was the saintly producer of my play, Waiting for Giovanni, has an intriguing new play coming up on November 4th. The Temperamentals is an award-winning new play about Harry Hay his love affair with avant garde fashion designer, Rudi Gernreich and their founding of the first...
Hang on, it’s going to be a wild ride!
— Robin
On Toni Morrison and Ntozake Shangé
Part 7 of a conversation between Feminist icons Margie Adam ...
Finger Exercises?
There was nothing I couldn’t talk about with Granny, who ...
Stop Embarrassing Yourself. Read This!
Dear Battle Axe,
I don't feel old, in fact, most ...
Silence is Not a Virtue
Silence is NOT a virtue. I don't know much about ...
Lesbian Dating and the 50/50 Rule
Today I’m attending a fundraising event where lots of wonderful ...
Is Antigone Rising a Gay Band?
Greetings Epochalips-ians,
I'm Kristen from the band Antigone Rising. Very quickly, ...
ACTIVIAISM
Recently when I went to an eye doctor for floaters, ...
A Thousand Voices to Cool the World
A Thousand Voices to Cool the World is a campaign ...
The ‘Magnificent’ Zero Mile Diet
I met Lea Kitler and Diane ‘Dee’ Doiron on the ...
Better Days in Boston
Hello bored and deviant people! The video attached is the ...
