I was rooting for Greta Gerwig's Barbie, but I was ultimately disappointed by the movie. I got to review it for The Dispatch. Gloria comes off as the Betty Friedan of the film, giving voice to the problem without a name. She offers her lecture on the impossibility of being a woman to each brainwashed… Read More
Tag: sex and sexuality
How Reversible are LARCs?
For a long time, I've wondered how easy it is for poor women to get IUDs removed. Long active reversible contraception (LARCs) are strongly recommended for poor women, but they can face the greatest barriers to seeing a doctor, and can be stuck, unable to have the children they want. I was glad to get… Read More
Rethinking Sex with Christine Emba
I got to interview Christine Emba about her new book Rethinking Sex: A Provocation. The full interview is embedded below, and the Institute for Family Studies ran an excerpt as part of their "Five Questions for..." series. We also had a lively conversation in the comments of Other Feminisms. Here's an excerpt: Sargeant: It feels like… Read More
Bridging the Divide Within Feminism
At Newsweek, I'm discussing some of the tensions within modern feminism, and where we can find common ground across the abortion divide. Women are divided over how to respond to a world that treats us as defective men. Do we try to elbow our way in by adjusting our lives to a norm that may… Read More
‘Cuties’ Is Dangerous, Even If It Wasn’t Meant To Be
At The American Conservative, I'm talking about why visual representations of exploitation are almost always pulled into a kind of exploitation themselves. The initial advertising for Cuties presented the hypersexualization without any hint of critique. It showed the young actresses in provocative poses, and made it appear that the intended audience for the film was… Read More
Bad Art Warps Our Vision
At First Things, I take a crack at explaining why smutty art is bad in the way airbrushing and CGI Yoda are bad. It’s the same reason we should object to airbrushed skin and photoshopped waists. It’s the same reason we should object to sending barely pubescent girls or anorexic teens down the catwalks to model clothes ostensibly being… Read More
Will the Real Mrs. America Please Stand Up
I reviewed Hulu/FX's Mrs. America for The American Interest. The show turns on one question: Who gets to claim the mantle of a women’s movement? In episode four, Schlafly and Friedan square off in a debate. Both women relish the fight—Friedan more obviously, exclaiming “God, I’d like to burn you at the stake,” just as… Read More
Thanos loses to “Riotous Fecundity”
My husband and I joined the clergymen of God and Comics to discuss the latest MCU movie: Avengers: Infinity War. The full episode is available to stream on the God and Comics site, but I thought I'd type up this teaser for you. Alexi: So if Killmonger is the shadow self of Black Panther, who… Read More
Aziz Ansari’s hookup was a game of Russian roulette
If Aziz Ansari is reading all the thinkpieces about him, he must feel most ill-served by his allies. “Aziz Ansari Is Guilty. Of Not Being a Mind Reader” wrote Bari Weiss for the New York Times, exonerating Ansari in a singularly insulting way. It’s unreasonable, Weiss and others write, to expect Ansari and other men to… Read More
Consent isn’t the Opposite of Louis C.K.
Consent, as the primary criterion for sexual ethics, thinks too small. The careful, consent-seeking lover seeks to use his own strength correctly and responsibly. If a lover of this type finds that his strength is a little too daunting, a little too hard to wield cautiously, the solution is to find ways to limit his… Read More