Category: Feminism

Bar none: Gay clubs reject bachelorette parties

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date April 29, 2009

Dawn Turner Trice’s recent Chicago Tribune article, “Gay rights battle puts strain on parties,” has created a stir. Trice noted that Geno Zaharakis of Cocktail, a gay bar at 3359 N. Halsted, does not allow bachelorette parties. Neither does the popular nightspot Sidetrack (next door at 3349 N. Halsted) , co-owned by Art Johnston, who was quoted in the article. The story disrupts the popular mythology about the bond between gay men and straight women, and it shines a new spotlight on the gay-marriage movement, which has seen significant advances. Is the ban a sign of things to come, and what does it tell us about the historical relationship of gay bars to their neighborhoods and their clientele? Windy City Times spoke to the principal people involved and a historian of gay political life.

Gay pulp art print Gay Cruise vintage pulp paperback cover image 0

Feminism Gay Marriage Queer Politics, Culture, and History Race, Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

The Kids Aren’t All Right: The Gay Marriage Movement and its Manipulation of Children and Youth

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date March 22, 2009

Is this what we want: young people whose self-worth is determined entirely by their romantic relationships?

Chicago Chronicles Feminism Film, Art, Television, and Media Queer Politics, Culture, and History Race, Sex, Gender, and Sexuality Reporting

Nikki Patin’s body language

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date February 18, 2009

Nikki Patin is a Chicago-born performance artist and activist, who has appeared on HBO’s Def Jam. Her work combines burlesque, spoken word and music to address the themes of body image, race and class. Patin will be touring New Zealand and Australia from the end of February through April, and is hosting a series of fundraisers in town to pay for the upcoming trip. She will be signing copies of her book “The Phat Grrrl Diaries” at these events. Windy City Times spoke to Patin.

Capitalism, Class, Inequality Feminism Politics Race, Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

Barefoot and Pregnant in the White House: Sarah and Bristol Palin

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date September 3, 2008

Let’s not forget that a woman’s right to have an abortion has everything to do with citizenship and power and can’t be dismissed as irrelevant.

Feminism On Books and Publishing Race, Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

Ready AND This Common Secret

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date May 7, 2008

Excerpt: The ability to reproduce and the ability to cease reproduction are mired in a complex entanglement of access and privilege.

Feminism Prison industrial complex Race, Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

Rape: The T-Shirt

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date April 23, 2008

We have privatized victimhood and are now privatizing criminalization.

Feminism On Books and Publishing Race, Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

Jean Thompson’s Throw Like a Girl

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date December 26, 2007

“It seemed you ought to be able to aim desire like a lens, and pass your longing straight through it. Maybe I was simply out of range.”

Academia Feminism Film, Art, Television, and Media Gay Marriage Queer Politics, Culture, and History Race, Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

Angelina Jolie, Queer Theory, and the Gods of Neoliberalism

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date September 21, 2007

Excerpt: ‘Sybil,’ it turns out, may barely have had one personality, leave alone sixteen. Much like Angelina, whose wild queerness turns out to have hidden a saintly girl who marries half the people with whom she sleeps.”