Author Archives: Claire Gordon

Next year will be the 40th anniversary of co-education at Yale. Forty years ago, women were granted access to one of the most exclusive and elite old boys’ clubs in the country. The separate but equal philosophy was once again defeated. At least at Yale, 40 years ago, gender apartheid in education came tumbling triumphantly »

Third-wave feminism tells girls that we can be both empowered and feminine. We can be CEOs in heels and lipstick; we can (almost) be president in a skirt and pantyhose; we can (sort of) be sexual aggressors in a mini-dress. We can have it all. We are liberated. But the ideology of “beautiful femininity” is »

The Yale prospectus is a catalogue of New England eye candy: ortho-perfect smiles, windswept bangs and the fading tans of Cape Cod summers. Flipping through the pictures as a high school senior, Sarah X was smitten. She blushed at Brooks Brothers blazers. She swooned over taut limbs in Ultimate Frisbee action shots. Once she arrived »

One in 100 American adults is behind bars. That’s 2.3 million people total. America imprisons more of its citizens than any other country in the world. China runs a close second, but of course, China has four times as many people as the U.S and is also a Communist dictatorship. America’s incarceration rate is higher »

The Washington Monument. A Fender Stratocaster. AK-47s. Neckties. Codpiece bayonets. Reminders of the penis are everywhere, from Victorian novels to skylines to fruit bowls. According to Freud, you either have a penis or you want one. If you drive a Ferrari, or smoke a Presidente cigar, you probably have one, but it’s just not enough. »

The patriarchy has reduced me to an immobile blob; it won’t let me shower; it has covered me in crumbs of stroopwafel, the legendary Dutch treat; it makes me use a walker to hobble to the toilet; it has forced me to down shots of milk of magnesia in order to regulate my bowel movements. »

This article has been corrected. You may view this article’s correction here. Why does casual sex still leave many women with a guilty aftertaste, that distinctive blend of red-wine vinegar, gefilte fish and self-loathing? How many women, mid-hookup, have reasoned, “I’d like to have sex, but I want him to respect me and call me »

The incident with Zeta Psi has caused a lot of campus controversy. Unfortunately, most of this controversy has not centered on the act itself, but rather on the Women Center’s threat of legal action. Almost everyone acknowledges that the act was misogynistic and distasteful, but many insist it’s a harmless joke by unthinking drunk fraternity »