Noah Berlatsky

Last year there was much excitement at the announcement that Lupita Nyong'o was going to play a major role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens — the first Black woman to star in the franchise.

Sex and bodies don't clarify gender; they confuse the issue.

Bulimia.com has reworked superhero images to show more realistic body types—and their efforts are valuable in more than the expected ways.

"The look on Miley's face during Nicki Minaj's savage, expletive-laden rant says it all," Salon tweeted the day after the VMAs. Less than 140 characters, but still enough to link a black woman to a longstanding racial slur.

Some love stories don't end happily. So why do so many romance novels insist they do?

As a parent, you tend to assume that you have some say in forming your child's mental landscape. Then Santa comes along.

A new Facebook post calls into question cover depictions of hyper-sexualized men and women.

Did the classic Adam West Batman show strike a blow (Kerwhap!) for feminism?

There's a good argument to be made that the earliest, and the best, rockabilly performers were women. Slicked-back, hiccuping, hopped up cool.

Action movies don't usually bother much with romance. The trailer for The Transporter: Refueled certainly doesn't. The hero is cool — sexy women, plural, throw themselves at him, or at least stand near him and things blow up; there are fights and revenge and high production values. Romance is, at best, a secondary concern.