The Flower Girl by Charles Cromwell Ingham, 1846

When Botany Was for Ladies

In nineteenth century America, young women took to studying botany—a conjoining of interest, social acceptance, and readily available schooling.
A 19th-century advertisement for Hood's Tooth Powder

How the Ban on Medical Advertising Hurt Women Doctors

Intended to protect consumers from unscrupulous quackery, a nineteenth-century ban on medical advertising proved to be a double-edged sword.
A pink breast cancer awareness ribbon

Branding the Breast Cancer Narrative

Do those ubiquitous pink ribbons stand for women’s health concerns... or for normative concepts of beauty?
Jamie Lee Curtis holds a knife in a scene from the film 'Halloween', 1978

Selling Slashers to Teen Girls

The heroines of 1970s and 80s teen horror movies were traditionally feminine, tough, and sexually confident.
Mother and Child Hand Coloured Ambrotype (Collodion Positive) c. 1860

Industrial London’s Maternal Child Abductors

In industrial-era England, children took on new value in family life. Around this time, they started to be stolen more often, too.
Jane Fonda, 1982

Jane Fonda Changed Fitness Forever

Jane Fonda's workout videos cracked open the idea of who exercise was for, but only to an extent.
Three women wearing corsets

How Colonialism Shaped Body Shaming

When did heaviness and curviness in women become connected with the idea of "savagery"? It has a lot to do with 19th-century imperialist world views.
A still from Betty Boop: Minnie The Moocher (1932)

Remaking Betty Boop in the Image of a Housewife

Betty Boop was literally designed to be a bombshell, but around 1935, her creators decided to change her appearance.
Eleanor Club, Chicago

Co-Living, the Hot New Trend of 1898

Chicago's "Eleanor Clubs" were designed to give young, working women affordable and congenial places to live.
Hortense Powdermaker

When Hortense Powdermaker Studied Hollywood

This anthropologist's research on contemporary American society probes the tensions between business and art in the film world.