By Deputy Editor Thea Lim

Time Magazine reports on women migrant workers who have been raped, and the resulting pregnancies:
While globalization has turned much of the world into a wide-open labor market, it has also created complex human and societal dramas. Women account for up to 50% of the world’s 100 million–strong migrant-worker population — and [...]

The literature on sex equality is shot through with accounts of this predicament, variously described as a “double bind,” a “Catch-22,” or a “tightrope.” In many workplaces, women are pressured to be “masculine” enough to be respected as workers, but also to be “feminine” enough to be respected as women. (I put the [...]

by Special Correspondent Wendi Muse
Continued from “Bela or Bust: Part 1: On Gender” . . .
Author’s note: My apologies for the delay between part one and part two! I have recently moved back to the United States and in between re-adjusting and job hunting, I had not had the chance or the mental clarity to sit [...]

by Special Correspondent Wendi Muse 
Continued from “Bela or Bust (Introduction)” . . .
Author’s note:
I recognize that to say that the preoccupation with being beautiful for women in Brazil boils down to three separate entities is oversimplifying. Gender, class, and race obviously intersect constantly and are difficult to consider beyond their Venn diagram-like existence. Yet [...]

by Special Correspondent Wendi Muse
“So, are the girls hot?”
This is the most common question I receive from American men when I explain that I have been living in Brazil. These men come from all walks of life, are of various racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds, and of varying levels of education, exposure to other countries, [...]

by Guest Contributor Mimi, originally published at Threadbared

Because this is a fashion plus politics blog, I want to post some very brief thoughts about the protests rocking Iran after what some observers are calling a fraudulent election, reinstalling President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against his main opposition, moderate reformer Mir Hossein Mousavi. (For news about the election [...]

by Guest Contributor Neesha Meminger

A couple of weeks ago I had the Toronto launch of my novel, Shine, Coconut Moon. I prepared myself in the usual way, going over what I would read, how I would introduce myself and the book to the guests, and anticipating audience questions during the Q&A. This Q&A, however, threw [...]

by Guest Contributor Lisa, originally published at Sociological Images
This post is dedicated to Frankie Manning. Frankie died this morning of complications related to pnemonia. He was one month shy of his 95th birthday. I will really miss him.
Frankie is a lindy hop legend. He choreographed the first clip below and [...]

by Latoya Peterson
*Note – Spoilers and lengthy.*

My mother would never win any awards, believe me. You could call her an absentee parent: if she wasn’t at work she was sleeping and when she was around it seemed all she did was scream and hit. As kids, me and Oscar were more scared of [...]

by Racialicious Special Correspondent Fatemeh Fakhraie. A longer version of this article appears on altmuslimah.
I finally got around to watching AmericanEast this weekend. Full disclosure: I had originally read Tariq Nelson’s review, which was a pretty good rundown.
AmericanEast is an attempt at mainstreaming American Muslims and attempts to portray the struggles Muslims face in [...]

by Guest Contributor Renee Martin, originally published at Womanist Musings

This incident of obvious police violence occurred last Novemeber. On Thursday Deputy Paul Schene pleaded not guilty to fourth-degree assault in Superior Court. According to the Washington Times,

“Schene was investigated previously for shooting two people — killing one — in the line of [...]

Excerpted by Latoya Peterson

The pressure young black women feel to defend black men against racist attacks, even at their own expense, is a new variation on the centuries old standard for black women’s race loyalty. This community wide standard – which asks women to take the hit (metaphorically and literally), to be content with [...]

by Latoya Peterson
In the Noir Issue of Bitch Magazine, I interviewed Tricia Rose about her new book The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip-Hop.
My interview assignment was 2,000 words. The transcribed interview came back as 6,000.
This is the overflow.
—
Latoya Peterson: You’ve had other works published, including [...]

by Guest Contributor Monica Roberts, originally published at TransGriot

One of the beauties of surfing the Net is that from time to time, you’ll stumble across a nugget of history or some photo that you weren’t even aware existed.
I’ve mentioned that JET, EBONY and the now defunct HUE magazines when they first started back in the [...]

by Guest Contributor Nichole, originally published at PostBourgie

Tyler Perry is set to release a film version of his play, Madea Goes to Jail, which I happened to watch with my family back home in Nashville over the Christmas holiday. TP flicks are best enjoyed as a community, because as you’re responding to your mother’s giggles [...]