Monthly Archives: July 2015
Misogynoir
Misogynoir refers to a combination of racism and sexism which specifically affects black women. The word was coined by black feminist scholar Moya Bailey. Examples of misogynoir include the stereotype of the ‘angry black woman’, which ultimately shames black women for being expressive and portrays black women as overly aggressive. By portraying black women as […]
Transgender vs Transracial: Caitlyn Jenner vs Rachel Dolezal
Most people know what transgender means: identifying as a gender that is not the same as the sex you were born into. Being transracial is not the same. Transracial does not refer to people who identify as a race different to their own. It refers to adopted children who are a different race than their […]
Cultural appropriation
Cultural appropriation is the act of taking traditional knowledge, cultural expressions or artifacts from another culture. Cultural appropriation is when somebody adopts parts of a culture that’s not their own. More specifically, though, it’s when people of a dominant culture adopt aspects of an oppressed/marginalized culture. Cultural appropriation is different from cultural appreciation in that […]
Body shaming
Today’s word of the week is body-shaming. Body shaming is degrading or demeaning someone on the basis of their body type. For instance, saying people have “let themselves go” after they have gained weight or mocking them because they are thin are examples of body shaming. Other examples of body shaming include suggesting people need […]
non-binary
Today’s word is ‘non-binary’, an adjective which describes a person or a gender. Society enforces the idea that gender is binary: we are either women or men. But there are many other ways to experience gender, and we call this ‘non-binary’. When we say that someone’s gender is ‘non-binary’, it means that the person does […]
Gender Action Project 