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Children and family

Gender & Sexuality

Keep Pride Nude

Arguments that kink has no place in a post-#MeToo Pride may appear reasonable, but celebrating public sexuality is an important step toward a future free of racism and homophobia.

Joseph J. Fischel

Arts in Society

Working on Our Primal Scream

Amidst a boys’ club of ’70s-era comics, Shary Flenniken’s ‘Trots and Bonnie’ was unique for its feminist depiction of the political and sexual awakening of young women.

John Crowley

Class & Inequality, Politics

How Biden Could Save Welfare

Direct payments to families should replace backdoor tax breaks, which obscure the failures of capitalism to sustain social reproduction.

Ben Zdencanovic

Gender & Sexuality, Law & Justice

With Gay Adoption Decision, Will the Supreme Court Erode the Regulatory State?

On the surface, Fulton v. Philadelphia poses a question about religious conscience—but its proponents hope it will enable conservatives to pick and choose which laws they have to follow.

Joanna Wuest, Briana Last

Arts in Society

The Millions

“Healing never restores us to the way we were before getting hurt.” A trip to Machu Picchu ends up offering surprising insights into what it means to be a survivor of the genocide of Native Americans.

Deborah Taffa

Race

The Logic of Eugenics Still Haunts Virginia

Elizabeth Catte’s new book examines how Virginia progressives believed the forced sterilization of poor whites would pave the way to a bright future—and how their legacy endures in national parks and prisons.

Ellen Wayland-Smith

Arts in Society

Caring in Viral Times

Indifference toward the most vulnerable has driven the death toll of COVID-19, just as it did during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis. Against this backdrop, even small acts of kindness can make a difference.

Michael McColly

Politics, Race

America’s Long War on Children and Families

A new book shows how Trump’s family separation policy belongs to a much longer history of U.S. government forces—alongside state and local entities—taking children from families deemed inimical to the idealized American family form.

Paul M. Renfro

Reading Lists

Incarcerated Fathers. Trans Fathers. Founding Fathers.

An alternative father’s day reading list.

Rosie Gillies, Boston Review

Class & Inequality

The End of Family Values

Neoliberalism rests on the myth that “good” families can provide for their own without public support. COVID-19 may finally change all that.

Julie Kohler

Class & Inequality

High Stakes Tests Aren't Better—And They Never Will Be

Accountability is important. But tests that tie school funding to student performance only make things worse.

Lelac Almagor

Gender & Sexuality

Secularism’s Saints

Two recent books about Mormon women highlight the success of the church in redefining itself as a modern liberal religion. But to become that, the Latter-day Saints dramatically reworked both their theology and history.

Peter Coviello

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