The Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekender is an event attended by hundreds of burlesque performers, producers, photographers and fans from all over the globe. It is held in Las Vegas, NV in a casino populated by the typical denizens of a casino except for at this one specific time. That is when the Glitter Tribe arrives to take over the… Read more →
Still Andrea here, while last I heard Elsa was listening to prurient gossip from elderly dancers in Vegas. Every so often it’s as if the feminist blogosphere feels the urge to rehash old problems endlessly. My personal favorite is the Name Change Wars, in which one side claims that women who take their husbands’ names upon marriage are catering to… Read more →
Andrea here, while our beloved blogmistress Elsa is off conquering Vegas. I thought about turning the blog into a showcase of the worst cat macros I could find, but decided in the end to use my powers for good. That being the case, here is some actual content. Recently, I’ve seen an increased trend towards bloggers I follow doing podcasts… Read more →
Tomorrow morning, at a ridiculous hour I’ll be flying to Vegas for the Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekender. I’ll be doing the work I signed up to do this March when I fundraised to get there and work on the Oral History Project – collecting the stories of burlesque performers so our history goes on for as long as we… Read more →
Two years ago I would have laughed at you if you’d suggested I apply for a PhD. Six years ago it was part of my plan. Get a Master’s, then onto a PhD? Then: The World. Today? Today I’m investigating PhD programs and thinking about scholarly pursuits again. You may be wondering what happened in the interim. Grad school happened… Read more →
People with disabilities and chronic illness are particularly vulnerable to assault in medical settings, where there is plenty of privacy but not a lot of internal security. Hospitals have done little to address this, seeing instances as isolated incidents. Patients assault other patients, strangers and visitors walk in from the streets into hospital rooms and assault patients, medical professionals and… Read more →
I don’t remember the first time someone urged me to be a Good Cripple. It might have been on my Livejournal, when someone I thought of as a friend told me I was “ruining” my “lovely journal” with negativity. It might have been the first time I gathered my courage and hissed “fuck off” at someone trying to distract my… Read more →
Some of you may not be aware of the fact that I do research on obscenity law as a part of my academic career which means I keep track of banned books and obscene materials in the news. Today I read about a mother in Michigan who wants the Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank’s diary) to be banned,… Read more →
Two years ago I wrote a piece for Offbeat Bride called Blind Women Get Married Too One year ago on Sunday, I married my now husband. (You can see the wedding profile on offbeat bride right here!) I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a visibly married disabled woman, and how people seem to be completely… Read more →
It is January of 2010 and I am sitting in front of my ocular plastic surgeon wearing my painted scleral shell for the very first time. I have still not figured out how I feel about my newly minted matching eyeballed self, and suddenly he says: ‘ “You look amazing! With some botox to stop you from squinting, thinner lenses… Read more →
