Fierce Femininity

Happy birthday, Janis.  If you’ve been reading for a while you may already know about my abiding appreciation and affection for Janis Joplin.  If you’re new to SF Unbound, surprise!  Don’t let the pin-up girls fool you, kids.  I’m all about kicking down the white picket fences around femme.  God knows I’m trying! Lots of [...]

What Is Freedom?

Happy Independence Day, darlings. I like fireworks as much as the next girl, but I’ve never been the flag-waving type and I don’t do parades unless they have leathermen in them.  (You have to draw the line somewhere.)   So sorry kids, there will be no patriotic pinups of girl-next-door beauties here today.  Instead, I’m commemorating the holiday with a little bohemian flair!   Although an unlikely [...]

Janis: Undoing Femme

What would it look like if we unhinged femininity from the ideal of flawlessness?  What part can femme play in this project?  All too often, femme is mistakenly equated with prissy, perfect, and idealized forms of womanhood.  But femme doesn’t mean being consigned to some vapid and airbrushed model of femininity!  Femmes are raw, imperfect, wild, strong, and–yes–ballsy, like my femme icon Janis Joplin.    I [...]