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This article written by Time magazine talks about how gender norms got started, how they are fading, and how people are fighting gender norms.

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The Past, Present and Future of Gender Norms

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Will continuing to challenge gender norms and document their harmful impacts lead to their extinction - or evolution?

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In this article, a woman talks about her experiences going to gender reveal parties as a feminist who believes they should be sex reveal parties not gender reveal parties.

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Dear Parents-to-Be: Stop Celebrating Your Baby’s Gender

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Cutting into a pink or blue cake seems innocent enough—but honestly, it’s not.

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In this video a visiting Dr. is looking for the "Nazi" who he assumes is a man. Dr. Bailey who is the "Nazi" acts like she doesn't know who that is, until he finds out that it is her.

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This picture lists the different types of stereotypes that society associates with being feminine and masculine.

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This image shows how websites are created for specific genders. With the men having more masculine categories where women have more feminine categories.

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This article written by the Human Rights Campaign talks about how in 2017 the TrumpPence administration tried to implement the banning of transgender individuals from serving in the military.

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This image shows how sexism plays a part in athletics and the pay differential between men's and women's leagues.

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This article written by CNN talks about how a Texas man was convicted to 20 years for the hate crime.

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man found guilty of hate crime in burning of texas mosque - cnn

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Man found guilty of hate crime in burning of Texas mosque

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A 26-year-old man was convicted of a hate crime for burning down a mosque in Victoria, Texas, in January 2017.

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This article talks about what it means to be able-bodied, disabled, and what able-bodied privilege is.

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In this video American comedian Chelsea Handler talks about white privilege and how we need to acknowledge it exists.

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chelsea handler: we owe our voices to the black community - cnn video

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Chelsea Handler: We owe our voices to the black community - CNN Video

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CNN's Chris Cuomo talks with comedian Chelsea Handler who confronts white privilege head-on in her new documentary, "Hello Privilege. It's Me, Chelsea."

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This video a man explains how oppression of race and religion is impacting his life.

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What does intersectionality mean to you?

It's a term that refers to the connections between our various identities and the different forms of oppression that we deal with.

And because we each have a unique set of identities, intersectionality has a unique meaning to each of us - so we can learn a lot from each other by finding out what being intersectional means to each of us.

So here's a short video from #RaceAnd that shines light on a perspective we don't get to hear from nearly enough. Social justice educator and musician Sonny Singh shares what navigating the world is like for him as a South Asian, turban-wearing, Sikh man - who also holds some positions of privilege.

If you don't already know how racial profiling and religion relate to one another and to intersectionality, here's your chance to learn - and if this already sounds familiar, then here's a reminder that you're not alone.

With Love,
The Editors at Everyday Feminism

Click for the Transcript

My name is Sonny Singh. I'm a musician and a social justice educator.

Race and religion.

We all have multiple identities, and those multiple identities are intersecting to affect our experience, to affect the way that we walk through the world. I am South Asian. I also consider myself Punjabi. I am Sikh, as in S-I-K-H, the faith. I am a cisgender man.

[Text: Cisgender: Describes a person who identifies with their assigned-at-birth gender.]

I am straight, and I grew up middle class. I am able-bodied. Structural racism, structural religious oppression, or Christian hegemony, structural patriarchy, or sexism, all of these things are actually interlocked in society. Intersectionality means that we acknowledge that, that we actually all have to fight against all forms of oppression if we actually truly want to get free.

[Text: Why is race important to consider along with other identities?]

I can't think about my racial identity as a brown person or as a South Asian American without also experiencing the racialized aspect of being a Sikh, right? Being someone who wears a turban, who has a beard, those are very racialized things, even though for me, they have to do with my religion. I haven't been able to walk through this world or to walk through this country as a brown skinned, turban wearing, beard having man, without that being just very apparent in the stares that I get, in the derogatory comments, the "terrorists," the "Osamas," the "ISIS."

My religion, Sikhism, has sort of been compounded with this vilification of Muslims and Muslim looking people at large. You know, that might technically be religious oppression, for example, or that might be tied to Islamophobia.

[Text: Islamophobia: An exaggerated fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam and Muslims that is perpetuated by negative stereotypes resulting in bias & discrimination.]

But those things are deeply tied to racism and white supremacy more broadly.

[Text: What about people who think talking about our differences divides us?]

My race, my gender, my religion, might very well have consequences on whether I make it walking down the street alive. That's the reality that we're living in, so to not talk about them, to not confront those things very directly, to me, is really the divisive thing, right? That's allowing these divisions and allowing these hierarchies and allowing these injustices to continue perpetuating against themselves. If we don't stand up against them, if we don't amplify our voices against these things, they're going to continue on whether we like it or not.

[Text: Last words?]

What's been harder is thinking about my intersectional self along the lines of the ways I think about privilege, right? So my cisgender maleness, right? My heterosexuality, the class privilege I had growing up. Those things have always been much harder to look at. If we have sort of a choice whether to implore one or more of our identities, it probably means that we have a relative amount of privilege. If we really want to be intersectional, we really have to challenge ourselves to also implore the ways which we experience privilege, and the ways that we can be in solidarity with folks that don't have as much privilege.

To learn more about this topic, check out:
Sonny Singh gives us insight on how he navigates the world as a South Asian turban wearing Sikh man but also sheds light on how his privileged identities as a cishet abled bodied middle class man can be utilized to stand in solidarity with others. Learn more about Sonny's work as a social justice educator here, listen to his band Red Baraat, and make sure to follow him at @brooklynsingh. #RaceAnd is a video series produced by Kat Lazo exploring the ways that race compounds and intersects with all the other issues faced by people of color. Each video features a different artist, activist, or thinker, sharing their lived experience of how race intertwines with their other identities, and how that mix impacts their lives both personally and systemically. Learn more by visiting our website.

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How Religion is Part of Intersectionality - This Sikh Social Justice Educator Says It All

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What does intersectionality mean to you? It's a term that refers to the connections between our various identities and the different forms of oppression that we deal with. And because we each have a unique set of identities, intersectionality has a unique meaning to each of us - so we can learn a lot from each other by finding out what being intersectional means to each of us.

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This article talks about how a professor teaches intersectionality to her students and why it is important.

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The Importance Of Intersectionality In Educational Equality For Women

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In 1972 Title IX was enacted, ensuring the right to education free from sex discrimination. Although this was a giant leap for educational equality for women, Dr. Chayla Haynes Davison, assistant professor in the Department of Educational Administration and Human Resource Development in the Texas A&M University College of Education & Human Development says we are far from the finish line for women's equality from the standpoint of intersectionality.

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This image shows how Disney has played a part in racism in their representation of colored women in movies.

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This image shows the pay difference between genders and races.

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In this article a woman talks about her experiences as an escort at an abortion clinic.

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The hardest thing I've ever done is carry a sobbing 14-year-old rape survivor from the door of a women's health clinic to the door of the van that would take her back to a women's shelter, while a crowd of men stood around us and screamed that she could never be forgiven.

The hardest question I've ever been asked is, "Why are they doing this to me?"

I don't know.

I've volunteered as an escort at an abortion clinic for two years. A friend had read about a clinic in the area that needed escorts for their patients and didn't have any, so she called them and offered to help. Then she called me and asked, "Can you do this?"

The job, on the most basic level, is to bring a patient from their car to the front door of the clinic, shielding and distracting them from protesters in the process. I know now that it's hard work; the emotional and physical rigor required can burn you out. But at the time I didn't think about it, because I didn't know there was anything to think about. I just said yes.

I completed the training, and a few weeks later I was standing on a sidewalk at 7 a.m. in five layers of clothing (it was very damn cold) and a bright yellow vest with CLINIC ESCORT VOLUNTEER printed on it in large block letters, staring down a gauntlet of people ravenous for fear. It wasn't their volume or their numbers that surprised me. It was their rage. It was how firmly, totally, and viciously they seemed to hate me, and my fellow escorts, and the women we were there to protect.

They consider it double the victory if she is crying, because that means repentance.

When you agree to become a clinic escort, you are agreeing to shield someone with your body from people who wish to hurt them. There are protesters who claim they are there out of love, and maybe some of them are. But the protesters I saw that day, and many days since, were not.

Most mornings, the sidewalk leading to the entrance of this particular clinic is lined with people whose goal is to scare women into leaving. A few of the protesters are women, who usually don't scream, but they do follow patients around, shoving literature and scientifically inaccurate models of fetuses into their faces. They call them "Mommy." They say, "God loves you. God loves your baby."

Mostly, though, they are men, and the men scream. They scream things like, "Black babies' lives matter!" They scream things like, "God will punish you! You will go to hell!" They scream things like, "Mommy! Don't kill me!" Sometimes they add something like, "A pregnancy from a rape is a gift!" They consider it a victory if they terrify a patient enough that she flees to her car. They consider it double the victory if she is crying, because that means repentance. Doesn't it?

When you're there on the sidewalk, you become strongly aware of the solidity and mass of your body. You are, after all, a living shield. When you meet a patient at one end of the sidewalk, you try to make yourself smaller: You want to indicate that you're not a threat, that you're here to protect them if protection is what they want.

Some of them will refuse you and walk through the gauntlet alone, shoulders squared and eyes front. Some of them will agree to be protected. (Some will also get to the door and decide this isn't what they want, and that, of course, is a choice we support them in, too.) You speak to every woman quietly and calmly. You avoid asking how they are or telling them it's going to be OK.

You observe: The weather is beautiful today. Beyoncé's new single is so good. Your sweatshirt is so cool; I bet that's really comfortable. We're 10 feet from the door. The door is right up here. We're 2 feet from the door. Here we are. We made it.

You ask for and give permission: Would you like me to walk you to the door? You don't have to take what they're trying to give you if you don't want to. Would you like to hold onto my arm? You don't have to listen to them.

And you apologize: I'm so sorry you have to deal with this today. I'm so sorry there are so many of them. I'm so sorry he's screaming at you. I'm so sorry.

Watching the debate around reproductive rights is hard for me. So much of it happens between people who have never stood on a sidewalk shielding the body of a child from people who insist they are screaming at her out of love. So much of it happens in a volley of statistics. So much of it happens in the abstract, away from the reality of our bodies and the choices we have made and the stories we tell about our own experiences - 95% of which, by the way, are not about regret.

We talk and we talk and we talk and a bunch of people, many of whom who do not have the ability to bring life into the world, disregard what we have to say. They hang onto their beliefs with a tenacity that exhausts and sickens me, that makes me sure that the root of the beliefs is that we are not really people, that we cease being people the second a pregnancy test says "yes," that our humanity is second-class, second-rate, silenced.

My body is not an abstract when I put it between someone who needs a shield and someone who wants them to hurt.

I wish those people could have heard one of the protesters tell a tearful couple that she knew of a doctor who could cure their wanted child's open spina bifida. I wish they knew that some of the escorts keep tissues in their pockets because you can hear the screaming through the door, where women stand, steeling themselves to leave the clinic. I wonder if it would be as easy for them to think about us in the abstract then.

My body is not an abstract when I put it between someone who needs a shield and someone who wants them to hurt. The women I watch marching into the clinic with their jaws set and their fists curled are not abstracts. In another place they might not have to be this brave; they could just walk in, see their doctor, and walk out. But the sidewalk is fraught, so they are courageous.

Every person who thinks that this particular kind of protest isn't harassment should have to witness this particular kind of courage. Every politician with a platform against abortion should be required to see what happens outside of the clinic.

These women are not just statistics. They are stronger than the people who think of them as numbers believe them to be. They are more real. They have a right to be there. The path that brought them to this sidewalk with me, whatever that path may be, is tangible. And all I can do is offer to hold their hands.

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Volunteering At An Abortion Clinic Made Me Lose Patience With The Abortion Debate

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The hardest thing I've ever done is carry a sobbing 14-year-old rape survivor from the door of a women's health clinic to the door of the van that would take her back to a women's shelter, while a crowd of men stood around us and screamed that she could never be forgiven.

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A common policy against discrimination is Title IX which is supposed to give everyone equal opportunities. This article talks about how it is not as gender neutral as we believe it to be.

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A feminist administrator has finally admitted what many men and women who have woken up to the abuses of Title IX have known for a while: It was always intended as a weapon against men.

Diane Davis, chair of the department of rhetoric at the University of Texas-Austin, had signed onto a letter defending New York University professor Avital Ronell, a well-known feminist and lesbian, from accusations of sexual harassment. As The Daily Wire previously reported, feminists rushed to back one of their own after she faced accusations of sexual misconduct from a former student. They even went so far as to impugn the motives of the accuser, a gay male, using the same tactics they would otherwise condemn if the accuser were a woman and the accused were a man.

But Davis went a step further when she responded to a New York Times inquiry.

"I am of course very supportive of what Title IX and the #MeToo movement are trying to do, of their efforts to confront and to prevent abuses, for which they also seek some sort of justice," Davis wrote in an email to the Times. "But it's for that very reason that it's so disappointing when this incredible energy for justice is twisted and turned against itself, which is what many of us believe is happening in this case."

Turned against itself? Title IX is gender neutral, so how can it be "turned against itself"?

Before quoting Davis, Times reporter Zoe Greenberg paraphrased Davis' comments about the letter she and her colleagues signed.

"Diane Davis, chair of the department of rhetoric at the University of Texas-Austin, who also signed the letter to the university supporting Professor Ronell, said she and her colleagues were particularly disturbed that, as they saw it, Mr. [Nimrod] Reitman was using Title IX, a feminist tool, to take down a feminist." (Emphasis added.)

Reitman is the gay man who accused Ronell.

A quote from Dana Bolger, co-founder of Know Your IX, followed Davis' in the Times article.

"I would say that the vast majority of Title IX cases are protecting male victims from male perpetrators, or female victims from male perpetrators," Bolger said.

Greenberg also paraphrased Bolger as saying, "Title IX was intended to address a long history of sexual harassment and assault of women at school."

Title IX, as written, is gender neutral. It states, in 37 words: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."

Of course, the statute has never been used in a gender-neutral way. From the beginning, it was used to ensure women had the same opportunities as men to participate in sports. When that was achieved, but women didn't sign up for sports at the same rate as men, Title IX became a cudgel to accuse schools of discriminating against women somehow. Brown University was sued in the early 1990s, and the argument was, even though the university provided women more opportunities than men to participate in sports, discrimination was somehow taking place because women weren't signing up. As Jessica Gavora wrote of the court ruling in the Wall Street Journal back in 2015:

The responsibility of the school wasn't to provide equal opportunity to participate in sports - it was to educate women to be interested in sports. In effect the ruling said that Brown women didn't know what they wanted. They only thought they were dancers or actors or musicians. They had to be taught that they were really athletes. They didn't know what was good for them but the government did.

This lawsuit prompted the federal government, by way of the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights, to issue a "clarification" that schools must achieve gender parity in sports participation, not just in opportunity. Schools still couldn't get enough women to sign up, so they began cutting men's sports to achieve the parity.

Over the following years, court rulings on Title IX morphed it into what it is today, what Bolger claimed it always was. Now Title IX - those 37 words - refers to protecting women from sexual assault, because women are the primary accusers and men are the primary accused. Schools allegedly sweeping sexual assault reports under the rug were committing discrimination by creating hostile environments that kept women - the accusers - from fully participating in their education. No one seemed to imagine that false accusations would then primarily affect men, so setting up campus kangaroo courts designed to find men responsible was also keeping one sex from fully participating in their education.

For her part, Bolger went on Twitter to clarify her statements from the Times article. Her actual quote is true, even if it may only be true because women are encouraged to see normal sexual interactions as assault while men are not. She began by acknowledging "that the quality of somebody's scholarship has absolutely nothing to do with whether they harass their students."

A few thoughts on this piece. First, it should go without saying that the quality of somebody's scholarship has absolutely nothing to do with whether they harass their students. Period. https://t.co/3d8m7T4dtz

- Dana Bolger (@danabolger) August 14, 2018

She continued her 7-tweet thread by reminding her followers that men also fall under the law's protection.

The fact that men are more likely to harass women and gender nonconforming people doesn't mean that men don't, or shouldn't, fall within the law's protection. (Nor does it mean that the harassment they suffer isn't gendered!)

- Dana Bolger (@danabolger) August 14, 2018

Further, she stated that the positions of authors of the letter "shouldn't be attributed to every feminist everywhere, many of whom vehemently disagree with them."

She concluded her tweet storm by fixing her error and writing that Title IX wasn't "initially intended to protect people from harassment. Feminist lawyers won that interpretation in the courts over decades."

Finally, Title IX *wasn't* initially intended to protect people from harassment. Feminist lawyers won that interpretation in the courts over decades.

- Dana Bolger (@danabolger) August 14, 2018

And she suggested a continued fight to change the law "to better respond to the harms people suffer."

Which is to say: the law isn't static. Our demands shouldn't be constrained by what it says today. We can (and should!) fight to change it to better respond to the harms people suffer.

- Dana Bolger (@danabolger) August 14, 2018

The law should have never needed to be "changed," since it was always gender neutral and simple. As the courts and politicians got involved, it became twisted and discriminatory against men. The statements and defense of Professor Ronell prove that.

Even if, as Bolger says, many feminists disagree with those defending Ronell, they have stood silent - remaining complicit - as Title IX has been used to deny men their constitutional rights.

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Feminist Admits Anti-Sex Discrimination Law Is Actually Anti-Men

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A feminist administrator has finally admitted what many men and women who have woken up to the abuses of Title IX have known for a while: It was always intended as a weapon against men.

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This article shows how different celebrities look before and after their images are airbrushed to "fix their flaws."

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Airbrushing is definitely a taboo subject among the masses. Celebrities are chastised for allowing media outlets to Photoshop their pictures but some are actually oblivious to it until it's too late.

On the whole it's these perfect airbrushed images that lead to so many young girls and boys self-harming or starving themselves to look just like their idols. These youngsters are aiming to achieve a look that is simply not possible to achieve, as a parent it's definitely a scary prospect.
I believe my own body image issues came from these perfect looking celebrities. I never felt pretty enough or skinny enough and it definitely affected my confidence growing up. It's only now as an adult that I am starting to feel it's OK to look older, to have lumpy bits and to have a poochy tummy, the sad thing is there are some people who never become comfortable with this and ultimately ruin their health trying to achieve the celebrity look.
I've included ten before and after airbrushed celebrity images below, you can see the before pictures are absolutely normal and really didn't need airbrushing. I'm pretty sure many of the magazine editors have body dysmorphia because these celebrities are gorgeous in their own rights and should be ashamed. It actually makes me so angry that they always lighten the skins of their models [regardless of original skin tone] what makes me more furious is when they do it to children, that's just unforgivable.
Notice the celebrities who do lead healthy lifestyles, eat right, exercise and laugh-a-lot are the one's whose radiance shows on the outside. To achieve outer beauty you definitely need to put in some work but that's another post altogether.
Here are the before and after pictures:

Jennifer Aniston always looks fab and effortless, I actually love that she doesn't get botox and just seems to look better the older she gets. This image has clearly been altered but not as severely as some of the others below. I just don't get why they would airbrush her picture though because she looks amazing in the before doesn't she?

She may sing about being 'fergie-licious' but she clearly doesn't look fab in these does she. I've always found Fergie looks fab in media images but when you see her on the TV she looks quite bad on occasion - a lot of occasions.

Eva Mendes has never appealed to me before, I was surprised though to see her before and after images only because I had never considered her having been airbrushed. You can clearly see she looks her age and again Cosmopolitan have erased her fine lines and made her lighter! Why do magazines feel the need to lighten skin tones?

Whoa! Peneople Cruz is such a beautiful-beautiful lady I'm only guessing she was ill, had no sleep or it was simply bad lightening. It doesn't help that her airbrushed after image is too airbrushed and doesn't look normal anymore.

Alicia Silverstone is the goddess of vegan, natural and healthy living, her before image clearly doesn't show someone who lives a completely healthy lifestyle - but it's natural. She looks happy, she looks natural and she looks normal. Like many people she has fine lines, wrinkles, marks and discolouration on her skin. Clearly the after pictures have been altered and have completely taken all signs of personality out of her skin and added makeup. You can see they have even airbrushed her hands... oh the shock and horror!

This is crazy. I get that the reason why they have altered the background but I just don't get why they airbrushed the gorgeous Scarlett Johansson? Her before picture looks gorgeous, her skin is amazing and her hair is perfect. For them to [again] lighten her skin to the point of becoming ghost-like and then to add make-up and darken her hair is just a tad cray-cray.

Say What! Geoge Clooney... how dare they. Tell me who done it and I shall send them a special deliver bitch slap. George is known for his old crooner looks, grey hair and effortless charm. They have taken away all of his lines and darkened his hair - Benjamin Buttoning him!

Another celebrity who needed no adjustments whatsoever Jessica Alba lives a healthy, happy lifestyle and it clearly shows. Again they darkened her hair, lightened her skin and added makeup...why.

Rachel McAdams is so cute and I love her before image. She has a mole, she has dark under eyes and fine lines but it gives her personality. I must prefer her before image, what do you guys think?

Bad, so bad. The blue eyes look so fake, Katy's eyes are naturally ocean blue so they where always going to look bad altered - I mean you can't make those gorgeous eyes anymore colourful without making them look fake. Katy also has normal girl skin problems and some teeny fine lines. Don't let them do it Katie we love you as you are.

Eeesh, supermodel huh. It's clear to see that Kate's partying lifestyle has caught up with her looks, what's frustrating about this clearly airbrushed image is that it's a standard cam shot of her going about her daily life. It's not a magazine cover or feature so why do they feel it's necessary to alter it?

It's this type of altered image that makes little girls think it's OK to be cool, party and live the rock and roll lifestyle because it won't affect your body and features - clearly that perception is wrong though.

I really love Kourtney Kardashian's no-nonsense personality. When she posted one week after giving birth she was horrified to find O.K magazine had altered her original image. You can see they clearly reduced her stomach as well as lightened her skin as well as baby Penelope's skin tone! She was so angry by this she released the original image over on Twitter to show that the body on O.K magazine was not hers.

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Airbrushing is definitely a taboo subject among the masses. Celebrities are chastised for allowing media outlets to Photoshop their pictures but some are actually oblivious to it until it's too late. On the whole it's these perfect airbrushed images that lead to so many young girls and boys self-harming or starving themselves to look just like their idols.

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This article explains what the Sexual Assault Survivors' Rights Act (2016) is, and what it does.

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Sexual Assault Survivors' Rights Act (S 2566, 114th Congress)

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Original Development Brief - Aims to specify rights for sexual assault survivors regarding medical forensic examinations and evidence collection kits, including being informed of a DNA profile match.

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How To Participate In The Women's March 

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How To Participate In The Women's March 

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This is the website for the women's March which lists where they have marches, news relating to the marches, and how to become a member.

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The mission of Women’s March is to harness the political power of diverse women and their communities to create transformative social change.

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This clip from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air shows how a fraternity wouldn't take him because he "is a sell out."

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The Fresh Prince of Bel Air Clip - Intersectionality of Social Class and Race