Katherine Acosta, sociologist and feminist writer, and Max Dashu, lesbian feminist historian,  join Bess to discuss the Department of Education's (DOE) proposed changes to the Title IX regulation allowing sex-segregated sports teams. You may submit a public comment on the proposed changes until May 15, 2023. The Department recognizes that prevention of sports-related injury is an important educational objective in recipients' athletic programs and that—as courts have long recognized in cases involving  sex-separate athletic teams—fairness in competition may be particularly importan ..read more

Bess summarizes Nancy Whittier's analytic framework for understanding the difference between coalition (ideological congruence) and collaborative adversarial relationships, using anti-pornography feminists and Catharine MacKinnon's novel civil legislation as an example. Spoiler: MacKinnon and anti-pornography feminists were not in coalition with anti-pornography conservatives and remained in active opposition to anti-pornography conservatives' legal goals & morality-based understandings of the harms of pornography. Feminists were known to say: Sex is not obscene! Rethinking Coalitions: An ..read more

In less than 25 minutes, Bess finally talks about her feminist principles and the purpose of the podcast: differentiating feminist analysis from old fashioned conservatism.  Using the example of a popular conservative framework that describes people who adopt a transgender identity as "mentally ill," Bess explains how this understanding of transgender people and their identities is in conflict with at least three basic feminist principles: Structural social critique (anti-individualism) Anti-authoritarianism Anti-essentialism Feminist analysis: A Feminist Critique of Cisgender, one of B ..read more

Kathy Acosta asks who sets the political agenda and why right wing Christian nationalists are interested in making alliances with small feminist organizations ..read more

PART ONE of this conversation, including notes and more links! In this second part of Shani and Kathy's conversation, I ask them about the role of criticism and disagreement in a political movements. Shani talks about what infighting means, loyalty, secrets, and interpersonal empathy with women who are being abused by trans rights activists. Kathy references Susan Faludi's classic feminist book Backlash and discusses the power disparities between Concerned Women for America (CWA) and the Women's Liberation Front (WoLF). They also discuss anti-intellectualism, pseudo-populism, the complicated ..read more

Katherine M Acosta blogs at Cassandra Speaks/She's Right You Know.  Women's Liberation Front ("WoLF") staff and board; wikipedia entry. Feminists in Struggle ("FiST") website about us page,  with first blog entries posted in March 2019, including support for the Declaration on Women's Sex-Based Rights. Women's Declaration International (WDI), formerly the Women's Humans Rights Campaign USA, website, board of directors, and international site. Feminist identified organizations working together, examples Ann Menasche, founder of FiST, and Kara Dansky, former board member of WoLF (curr ..read more

Welcome to Notes on Feminism and the Culture Wars, my name is Bess Hungerford and this is a podcast about politics.  We will talk about grassroots feminist organizing, the rise of Christian nationalism, especially in the US, and most importantly, why women's liberation is antithetical to conservatism. Please join me and my fascinating guests as we discuss a wide range of topics including sex and gender in law and language, political disagreement, and, of course, feminism.  ..read more

Bess comments that she knew she disagreed with Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF)’s approach to gender identity in 2016, but didn't consider it a "red flag" for conservatism until later. Shani describes her introduction to WoLF's political priorities (including formalizing a relationship with a far right fundraiser) and explains, by reference to Marx and Engels, why the assertion that conservatives are opposed to porn/prostitution is ridiculous and shocking. Radical feminists and conservatives are not aligned ..read more