While the Iranian regime’s laws governing women today are very conservative, Iranian women are a powerful cultural and political force, as evidenced by a new exhibition titled “Rebel, Jester, Mystic, Poet: Contemporary Persians.” The show is a nod to the voices of artists who explore gender, politics, spirituality, and war, sometimes with humor, other times with open defiance.

A top Chinese government think tank even believes this star-induced feminization is part of a wider CIA operation to emasculate Asian men. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences accuses legendary star-makers, the Johnny & Associates talent agency, of working with the CIA to degrade Japanese masculinity, leading to the profusion of soshokukei danshi (“grass eaters” or “herbivorous boys”) in Japanese society.

Marvel is far from the only franchise reckoning with its past treatment of female characters as it tries to market itself as a hub of inclusive story-telling. But it has seemingly become more deliberate in its treatment of female characters. “I think there is a conscientious effort to not objectify women,” says Victoria Alonso, executive vice president of production at Marvel Studios.

"More than 120 out lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and nonbinary athletes will compete in the Tokyo Olympics, making this year’s Games the most inclusive in history, according to a new report compiled by news outlet Outsports."

“It’s really about meeting women where they are. It’s for that woman who has been overlooked, or feels like their voice hasn’t been heard. That was the biggest thing when I spoke out, was hearing from other women across industries. And having such a connection there, feeling like it’s so much bigger. There’s just that power in the collective.”

In June 1860, Elizabeth Packard, a housewife and mother of six, had simply stood up to her domineering husband. As she would record in a defense of her sanity that she wrote while in the asylum, she’d insisted, “I, though a woman, have just as good a right to my opinion as my husband has to his”—but assertive women in those days were swiftly dispatched to asylums, institutionalized for causing “the greatest annoyances to the family” and for defying “all domestic control.”

Women’s labor force participation has dropped to 57% since the pandemic began, and of all groups of parents, single moms have seen the biggest drop in the proportion who are employed. That suggests that whenever the CDC moratorium on evictions expires – which it’s set to do next month — perhaps most heavily represented among the millions likely to be evicted are single mothers and their kids.

In recent years, parents and young readers have seen a greater number of children’s books about gender identity, as well as diverse experiences and social justice issues more broadly, available on the market.

The prospect of Garcia becoming the first woman mayor of New York City is yet another chapter in America’s ongoing struggle with how to handle female competence in a political world that rarely rewards it.

For centuries, poets and pundits have observed that English is missing a word: a gender-neutral, third-person pronoun that could be used in place of he or she when gender is unknown or irrelevant.