Noah Berlatsky

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

Is the gender of the philosopher a marginal curiosity—or is it more central?

english lit academic. wish fulfiller. thwarted world-changer.

Conservative fetishization of the past is myopic, simplistic, and mean-spirited—but progressives can be too quick to cede tradition.

Metal aggression isn't sexual, but existential. As a result, women in the genre are both rare and unexpectedly equal.

Banks' "Ice Princess" video shows that it's not only white people who can pick up someone else's culture.

With the death of Leonard Nimoy, it's a good moment to pay tribute to (and question) his most famous character.

At first, this looks like sexism. And then you realize, hey, this is sexism. Hope isn't allowed to do the dangerous job because Pym has put her on a pedestal, and won't let her off it.

Their sexuality traps and destroys male innocence, as they grad hold, by the penis- the better to lead him to castration. Make no mistake that castration is greeted with fear, terror, and disgust—but also with glee. Women as super villains allow their characters to be super powerful; a force for evil is at least a force. In a media landscape where women are often rendered secondary, invisible, and passive, the femme fatale, in her icy violence, seizes female agency along with the phallus that she so efficiently cuts off.

C.S. Lewis' classic book presents an unlikely challenge to the patriarchy in the form of its true hero, Lucy.