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Patriarchy Explained Through a Boot on a Woman's Neck
Taylor Swift wrote "The Man" specifically to imagine how differently the world would treat her ambition if she moved through it as a man instead of a woman. Margaret Atwood built an entire novel, The Handmaid's Tale, around the same mechanics, tracing a patriarchal state that controls women's bodies through law and religious authority, and that novel has since generated a television adaptation running for six seasons. Greta Gerwig took a different approach with Barbie, using

Maria Salinas
Jul 143 min read


She's Not "Kept." She's Keeping Herself.
The Myth In Latin households, men who have not swept a floor since the Obama administration use the word 'mantenida' like it means something. Mantenida comes from "mantener," to maintain or to support, and it carries a social charge that the English phrase "kept woman" never quite captures. On the surface it describes an economic arrangement. Underneath, it functions as a verdict. A mantenida is not simply financially dependent, she is presumed to be exploiting that dependenc

Maria Salinas
Jun 175 min read
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