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.
Gypsy Rose Lee seated at a typewriter

Who Really Wrote The G-String Murders?

Gypsy Rose Lee, the most famous burlesque star of the 1940s, wrote a series of letters published by Simon & Schuster that may prove her authorship.
British Ladies Football Club 1895

The Origins of Women’s Soccer

The British Ladies Football Club held their first match at Alexandra Park in Crouch End, London in 1895.
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz

Sor Juana, Founding Mother of Mexican Literature

How a 17th-century nun wrote poetry, dramas, and comedies that took on the inequities and double standards women faced in society.
Sara Josephine Baker

To Reduce Infant Mortality, Train the Babysitters

“Little Mothers’ Leagues,” a program started by Dr. S. Josephine Baker at the turn of the last century, taught school-age girls to care for babies.
Judith Butler

Judith Butler: The Early Years

Before Judith Butler's 1990 book Gender Trouble, the influential gender theorist wrote a series of essays that offer easier access to her ideas.
The cover of Jessica Hagedorn’s 1990 "Dogeaters"

The Filipino Novel That Reimagined Neocolonial Gender

Revisiting an essential Asian American work, beloved for its synthesis of neocolonialism, postmodernism, and central queer and female characters.
A young Irish woman working at a spinning wheel. Engraving by Francis Holl

How War Revolutionized Ireland’s Linen Industry

During the Napoleonic Wars, Irish women, who had traditionally only spun flax into thread, took over the traditionally male job of weaving linen as well.