gender-based violence
Secret CVs: The Slow Violence of Casual Sexism in Academia
An anonymous whistleblower describes the cumulative effect of sexual harassment in academia.
Black Candles for Bad Men
A supermarket worker turns to her ancestors for help stopping sexual harassment.
Flan Desparramado
A battered woman makes a crucial deal with Dominican Jesus: if she could escape her abuser in order to spend time with her dying mother, she would learn to make flan.
Crustaceans
Gris Muñoz writes a gentle, haunting story about love, lobsters, and abusive men who flaunt their power.
While in Search of my Latinidad, an Abuser Found Me
While a writer searched for her Latinidad, a narcissistic abuser exploiting his status as a Cuban dissident found her.
Pocas Pero Locas, Episode 3: “Wassup, M’ija?”
After a gang unit stopped my 14 year old cousin for driving in a stolen hoopty, they took her to Eastlake Juvenile Hall and handed her over to a new abuser: a cop.
Pocas Pero Locas, Episode 2: Chicken Soup for the Homies’ Soul
An older homegirl, a hood mom whom Desiree considered her mentor, announced, "I'm jumping you in."
Pocas Pero Locas: An Interpersonal Chicana Essay Where Two Primas Make Sure Shit Gets Told Right
Myriam Gurba writes about her cousin Desiree, female gangsters, cholas, Mexican bad asses with big hair, and the criminalization of survivors.
My Life at the Dildo Factory
A story of workplace abuse: “Saftey words are for Pussies!” read the misspelled Roy-Lichtenstein-does-BDSM faux pop art painting displayed in the office of the Anonymous Sex Toy Company. "Safe, Sane, and Consensual" was the company motto. None of the men running the company understood those slogans were incompatible.
Some Workplace Injuries are No Accident
In the past five months, incidents of women getting threatened, hurt, or killed at their American workplaces appeared on national news. On November 12, the NY Post outed a paramedic as a sex worker, resulting in a barrage of threats. The exposure also jeopardized her job. On January 6, we saw Congresswomen hide in their offices in lockdown while gallows were being erected for them outside their work building. On March 16, we learned that six women in Atlanta were killed when a mass shooter came into their place of work. It’s clear from these incidents that the prestige, location, or salary of a woman’s job has no bearing on how safe she is at work. When society normalizes gender-based violence in the home, it also normalizes gender-based violence in the workplace.
Matt Gaetz: an Extraordinarily Ordinary Creep
What makes the accusations against Matt Gaetz so plausible is the ubiquity of men like him. Many of them work for state, like my former coworker John William Gunde, a high school teacher arrested for sex with a minor, currently on paid administrative leave.
Writing Ourselves Into Bed
When battered women "move on," sometimes, we "start over" in a new home that's, in many ways, a reconstitution of our old home. We might not be sharing walls or a roof with the piece of shit who fucked us up but the weapons he used remain. Weapons like a bed. They don't look like weapons. They look like ordinary things. That's what's so frightening about them.
Framing Britney Spears Deepened My Desire for Justin Timberlake to Eat a Bag of Dicks
No daughter should live in terror of her dad and prolonged fear of a caregiver, especially a masculine one, indicates that someone may be experiencing coercive control, an ongoing form of gendered oppression characterized by a combination of conditions which are documented by Framing Britney Spears.
The Dangers, and Pleasures, of Smoking in Bed
Mariana Enriquez’s The Dangers of Smoking in Bed joins the ranks of magic realism's finest short story writers with a group of off-kilter tales enlivened by captivating unease.
Don’t Call Me Resilient
Using the word "brave" exalts certain traumatized people as heroic and casts others as failures. All victims of assault deserve to have their experiences dignified with validation, not just those who earn it through "bravery."