A Jewish Welfare Board cookout for soldiers

Community Cookbooks and the Women Who Wrote Them

Before "local" became a foodie obsession, small groups of women published collections of their own recipes. And still do!
A poster promoting healthy eating from between 1941 and 1945

The Idea of “Good Nutrition” Has Changed Over Time

But one thing has been constant: the tendency to call some foods better for you than others.
The DSM in rainbow colors

How LGBTQ+ Activists Got “Homosexuality” out of the DSM

The first DSM, created in 1952, established a hierarchy of sexual deviancies, vaulting heterosexual behavior to an idealized place in American culture.
A bartender in 1951

How Women Fought for the Right to Be Bartenders

As Life magazine put it, “angry barmaids are tough opponents in any hassle.”
Close up of a basketball players feet

Playing Girls’ Basketball in 1930s Chinatown

Chinese American girls played an innovative style of basketball on the playgrounds of San Francisco, and dominated the court.
Figures merge female to male

Policing Intersex Americans’ Sex and Gender 

Assigning one sex to people with ambiguous genitalia has a long history in medicine and law.
At a self-defence demonstration a woman uses a judo heel and leg turnover against a kicking attacker.

How American Women First Learned Self-Defense

Jiu-jitsu, judo, boxing, and wrestling raised eyebrows. But physical strength and political empowerment went hand in hand.
Boy scouts in CA, 1915

Why Do Boy Scouts Shoot Rifles?

It wasn't a big focus at the beginning of the scouting movement. So what changed?
Matilda Joslyn Gage

Erasing Women from Science? There’s a Name for That

Countless women scientists have have been shunted to the footnotes, with credit for their work going to male colleagues. This is called the Matilda Effect.
Susan Faludi

Backlash Then, Backlash Now

“No feminist ever said the women’s movement was about women ‘having it all,’” Susan Faludi said. “In the 80s, it was falsely held up as a feminist promise broken.”