This is a great analysis of Time’s Person of the Year cover of Trump. The Forward and Jake From show the subversive message of the cover photo.

I think it’s primarily ahistorical thinking as well as the focus on eugenics (which was considered to be progressive public policy at the time). It’s hard sometimes to understand the contradictions in thinking in the past. For example, in the mid-19th century, it was perfectly consistent to be opposed to slavery but…

(Full disclosure: I am a historian of US women’s history.) Sanger was absolutely a product of her time, but it’s ahistorical to judge her based on modern ideas and values. She was so focused on the birth control movement that she was willing to ally with almost anyone and speak to almost anyone (even the Women’s…

My Catholic school upbringing consisted of guilt and shame. No smugness.

I once dated a conservative Christian (don’t ask). I really pressed him on why he thought being gay was worse than, say, being a child molester. All he could come up with was the idea that being gay was being in some kind of permanent state of sin, while (in theory) a child molester could stop child molesting and be…

As a Catholic school survivor, I only liked Francis for his focus on poverty and social justice (I was a kid in the 1970s, so that’s the church I was raised in). However, the Church turned me into a raging feminist because I was so pissed off (as a 3rd grader) that boys could totally fuck up Mass as alter boys, but…