Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 29/09/2026"We want to be free in the same way we want our homeland to be free." In the latest Ask a Feminist, Sarah Ihmoud expounds on Palestinian feminism. Listen to her full conversation with Zinaida Miller in your podcast app or on our website! buff.ly/i8STdFU 020
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 10/09/2026ICYMI: New Ask a Feminist on Palestinian feminism and its analysis of colonialism, sexual violence, the carceral state, and reproduction. Featuring Sarah Ihmoud and Zinaida Miller - available free. 000
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 09/09/2026Sarah Ihmoud and Zinaida Miller discuss what a Palestinian feminist lens reveals about the use of reproductive violence against Palestinian women, as well as sexual violence against both men and women in Israel's carceral system. Listen to the latest episode of Ask a Feminist.signsjournal.orgPalestinian Feminism, a Conversation with Sarah Ihmoud and Zinaida MillerVisit the post for more. 001
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 08/09/2026"I think that Palestinian feminist analysis is unambiguous about this: that rape and sexual violence are not incidental to this colonial project. They are structurally constitutive of it." — Sarah Ihmoud Listen to the episode free, or read on our website: buff.ly/4EyT5JXsignsjournal.orgPalestinian Feminism, a Conversation with Sarah Ihmoud and Zinaida MillerVisit the post for more. 011
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 08/09/2026"Palestinian feminism is about the embodiment of a life-affirming politics and ethics. It’s about an orientation toward Palestinian livability & future, both in terms of daily life and in terms of collective liberatory struggle." --Sarah Ihmoudsignsjournal.orgPalestinian Feminism, a Conversation with Sarah Ihmoud and Zinaida MillerVisit the post for more. 010
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 08/09/2026New Ask a Feminist! Sarah Ihmoud and Zinaida Miller discuss PALESTINIAN FEMINISM. What can it reveal about the extreme violence of the war in Gaza? About the quotidian violence of life under occupation? Listen in your podcast app or read for free! signsjournal.org/palestinian-...signsjournal.orgPalestinian Feminism, a Conversation with Sarah Ihmoud and Zinaida MillerVisit the post for more. 002
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 14/08/2026"We go online to call them to the street." Sofia P. Caldeira, Camila Lamartine & Ana Kubrusly follow Portugal's 2023 International Women's Day march on- and offline, showing how digital & street feminism are tangled together.journals.uchicago.eduUniversity of Chicago Press Journals: Cookie absent© 2025 The University of Chicago and other publishing partners. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial intelligence technologies or similar… 020
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 14/08/2026Whether it's Polish police archives or Portuguese street protests, feminist businesses or driver's license gender markers, our new issue covers a lot of ground. The theme remains the same: patriarchy finds new ways to adapt, and feminist critique must adapt with it.journals.uchicago.eduSigns: Journal of Women in Culture and Society | Vol 51, No 4This article offers a critical feminist analysis of the perversions of care that appear in moments when care is instrumentalized by neoliberal and fascist states to cover for financial cuts and… 000
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 13/08/2026Are feminist businesses sellouts to capitalism or sites of resistance? Natacha Bastiat-Jarosz, Florence Degavre, & Alena Sander interviewed 52 founders across Europe & the US and found something more complicated: safer economic spaces.journals.uchicago.eduUniversity of Chicago Press Journals: Cookie absent© 2025 The University of Chicago and other publishing partners. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial intelligence technologies or similar… 000
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 13/08/2026See how care, abortion, and other feminist aims can be co-opted and weaponized by the state. Our new issue pushes past easy binaries to show what feminist analysis can do in dark political times.journals.uchicago.eduSigns: Journal of Women in Culture and Society | Vol 51, No 4This article offers a critical feminist analysis of the perversions of care that appear in moments when care is instrumentalized by neoliberal and fascist states to cover for financial cuts and… 022
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 13/08/2026Erica Millar, Carrie Purcell, Fiona Bloomer & Emma Campbell's "Framing a Feminist Abortion" proposes seven principles for feminist abortion care: supported, informed, safe, stigma-free, decriminalized, autonomous, & accessible.journals.uchicago.eduUniversity of Chicago Press Journals: Cookie absent© 2025 The University of Chicago and other publishing partners. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial intelligence technologies or similar… 021
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 12/08/2026Feminist history has often been written through Western eyes. In this article, Jorūnė Linkevičiūtė revisits socialist feminism in Soviet & postsocialist Lithuania, arguing it deserves its own place, rather than serving as an afterthought to liberal Western frameworks.journals.uchicago.eduUniversity of Chicago Press Journals: Cookie absent© 2025 The University of Chicago and other publishing partners. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial intelligence technologies or similar… 001
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 12/08/2026See how care, abortion, and other feminist aims can be co-opted and weaponized by the state. Our new issue pushes past easy binaries to show what feminist analysis can do in dark political times.journals.uchicago.eduSigns: Journal of Women in Culture and Society | Vol 51, No 4This article offers a critical feminist analysis of the perversions of care that appear in moments when care is instrumentalized by neoliberal and fascist states to cover for financial cuts and… 000
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 12/08/2026Solving for X: Gender Markers, the Law, and the Administrative State Juliet A. Williams' article "Solving for X" looks at gender markers on US driver's licenses and finds "not one but two different versions of the X gender marker" currently in use.journals.uchicago.eduSolving for X: Gender Markers, the Law, and the Administrative State | Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society: Vol 51, No 4AbstractIn recent years, official gender classification schemas have been expanded to include a third category, typically designated by an X. This development has been heralded in media reports as a… 000
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 11/08/2026Mary Byrne's article "The Right Revives Ophelia" unpacks how Moms for Liberty mobilizes "neoliberal, white feminist rhetorics about girlhood" to fuel panic over trans teens.journals.uchicago.eduUniversity of Chicago Press Journals: Cookie absent© 2025 The University of Chicago and other publishing partners. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial intelligence technologies or similar… 000
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 11/08/2026"Gender ideology" is now central to MAGA's attempts to roll back feminist & queer gains. Our new issue addresses all of this and more—from anti-trans "Ophelia" panic to conspiracies about "trans medicine" to the two faces of the "X" gender marker.journals.uchicago.eduSigns: Journal of Women in Culture and Society | Vol 51, No 4This article offers a critical feminist analysis of the perversions of care that appear in moments when care is instrumentalized by neoliberal and fascist states to cover for financial cuts and… 033
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 09/08/2026In our latest Short Takes on Rachel Karp’s The Lesbian Bar Chronicles, we discuss the living history of lesbian bars—from Eve’s Hangout and Maud’s to The Sports Bra and Gossip Grill—asking what it means to build queer community in and beyond the bar. buff.ly/eNIFTRa 020
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 08/08/2026June Thomas detects a "faint odor of the puff piece," but nonetheless finds The Lesbian Bar Chronicles full of incredible stories. Read our New Short Takes for free. buff.ly/eNIFTRasignsjournal.orgRachel Karp’s The Lesbian Bar ChroniclesKrista Burton, Ashley Green, Mairead Sullivan, and June Thomas discuss Rachel Karp’s book The Lesbian Bar Chonicles, plus a response from Karp herself. 020
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 08/08/2026Why do we keep declaring lesbian bars dead, only to mourn them into meaning once they're gone? Our latest Short Takes on Rachel Karp's The Lesbian Bar Chronicles push back on the eulogy narrative. Read for free! buff.ly/GFETj0K 010
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 07/08/2026“What would it mean to love lesbian bars while they are still living…still messy, expensive, undercapitalized, exclusionary, reparative, disappointing, thrilling, and in need?” — @msullivanphd.bsky.social in our new Short Takes. Free to read. buff.ly/GFETj0K 040
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 07/08/2026Ashley Green pushes us to ask: why do we keep centering bars—spaces built around alcohol—as the default site of queer community? What other spaces are we missing when we focus only on the bar? Read our latest Short Takes on The Lesbian Bar Chronicles, free! buff.ly/GFETj0K 020
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 06/08/2026Read Krista Burton’s Short Take on why there’s always “a lesbian bar coming to you soon” and why those spaces still matter—for friendship, desire, and everyday queer life. Read for free! buff.ly/GFETj0Ksignsjournal.orgRachel Karp’s The Lesbian Bar ChroniclesKrista Burton, Ashley Green, Mairead Sullivan, and June Thomas discuss Rachel Karp’s book The Lesbian Bar Chonicles, plus a response from Karp herself. 010
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 06/08/2026Krista Burton, Ashley Green, @msullivanphd.bsky.social, & June Thomas respond to Rachel Karp’s The Lesbian Bar Chronicles in our new Short Takes, exploring bar culture, addiction, racism, trans inclusion, and the everyday politics of lesbian spaces. Read for free!signsjournal.orgRachel Karp’s The Lesbian Bar ChroniclesKrista Burton, Ashley Green, Mairead Sullivan, and June Thomas discuss Rachel Karp’s book The Lesbian Bar Chonicles, plus a response from Karp herself. 020
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 06/08/2026Joanna Wuest's article "Exposing the Gender Identity Industry" examines the paranoid politics claiming a "vast capitalist conspiracy" is driving trans medicine, and why this narrative appeals to the anti-gender right.journals.uchicago.eduUniversity of Chicago Press Journals: Cookie absent© 2025 The University of Chicago and other publishing partners. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial intelligence technologies or similar… 030
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 05/08/2026Ewa Alicja Majewska's article "Perverted Care in the State of Exception" looks at how care gets "instrumentalized by neoliberal and fascist states," using 1980s Polish police operations against gay men as a case study.journals.uchicago.eduPerverted Care in the State of Exception: A Feminist Analysis | Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society: Vol 51, No 4AbstractThis article offers a critical feminist analysis of the perversions of care that appear in moments when care is instrumentalized by neoliberal and fascist states to cover for financial cuts… 010
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 05/08/2026The Summer issue of Signs is out now! As fascism accelerates in the US, this issue addresses some of the questions feminist scholarship tackles best: trans rights, abortion, care, socialist histories, feminist businesses & digital activism.journals.uchicago.eduSigns: Journal of Women in Culture and Society | Vol 51, No 4This article offers a critical feminist analysis of the perversions of care that appear in moments when care is instrumentalized by neoliberal and fascist states to cover for financial cuts and… 031
Reposted by Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and SocietySigns: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 29/04/2026“In an era where trans people often figure as phantoms, devoid of their names and personal stories, the authors remind us that this 'debate' begins by stripping trans athletes of their full humanity.” - Elizabeth Sharrow Check out this Short Takes on Fair Game!signsjournal.orgFair Game: Trans Athletes and the Future of SportsChristina Kahrl, Maggie Mertens, and Elizabeth Sharrow discuss Fair Game: Trans Athletes and the Future of Sports, with a response from authors Ellie Roscher and Anna Baeth. 031
Reposted by Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and SocietySigns: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 29/06/2026To close out #Pride, check out our Ask a Feminist “Trump’s Anti-Trans, Anti-Gender Executive Orders” with Libby Adler and K.J. Rawson, discussing Trump's 2025 “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government" signsjournal.org/trumps-anti-...signsjournal.orgTrump’s Anti-Trans, Anti-Gender Executive Orders, A Conversation with Libby Adler and K.J. Rawson 001
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 29/06/2026To close out #Pride, check out our Ask a Feminist “Trump’s Anti-Trans, Anti-Gender Executive Orders” with Libby Adler and K.J. Rawson, discussing Trump's 2025 “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government" signsjournal.org/trumps-anti-...signsjournal.orgTrump’s Anti-Trans, Anti-Gender Executive Orders, A Conversation with Libby Adler and K.J. Rawson 001
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 26/06/2026#HappyPrideMonth! Check out our multimedia archives “Signs Resources for Trans Rights and Justice” & “Radical Feminism and Trans Rights,” accompanying Breanne Fahs’s essay “The Urgent Need for Radical Feminism Today.” signsjournal.org/catharine-a-...signsjournal.orgCatharine A. MacKinnon, “Exploring Transgender Law and Politics”Digital Archive: To accompany this Feminist Frictions essay, Signs invites you to explore two previously independently prepared resources related to the themes in “Exploring Transgender Law a… 000
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 22/06/2026“What Do We Learn About Protecting Trans/Queer Youth If We Ask a Lesbian Feminist?” Matt Richardson explores the experiences of Stacy D., a Black trans lesbian femme, emphasizing "life as an ongoing quest for self-discovery & community.” #HappyPrideMonth www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...journals.uchicago.eduUniversity of Chicago Press Journals: Cookie absent 020
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 22/06/2026Check out Julia Golda Harris’ “Womanly Sounds: Women’s Music and Lesbian Transfeminisms and Transphobias in the 1970s,” which offers musical engagement “as a potent tool for claiming lesbian selfhood in the face of transphobic oppression.” #HappyPrideMonth www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...journals.uchicago.eduWomanly Sounds: Women’s Music and Lesbian Transfeminisms and Transphobias in the 1970s | Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society: Vol 51, No 1AbstractWhy did the most significant conflicts over trans inclusion and exclusion in US lesbian feminist spaces in the late twentieth century take place within women’s music settings? Such incidents i... 010
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 15/06/2026#HappyPrideMonth! Tamara Lea Spira’s “Queering Families: Reproductive Justice in Precarious Times,” draws from queer ancestors to imagine queer reproductive futurity "within abolitionist, anti-imperialist & anti-colonial movements for justice and life.’” www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...journals.uchicago.eduQueering Families: Reproductive Justice in Precarious Times. By Tamara Lea Spira. University of California Press, 2025. | Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society: Vol 51, No 3 050
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 12/06/2026Read Emily K. Hobson’s “Women/Lesbian/Prison/Trans? Categories of Mobilization in the Campaign to Change the Definition of AIDS” to learn about campaigns that proved "generative for queer politics & the politics of prison abolition.” #HappyPride www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...journals.uchicago.eduWomen/Lesbian/Prison/Trans? Categories of Mobilization in the Campaign to Change the Definition of AIDS | Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society: Vol 51, No 2AbstractFrom 1989 through 1993, a coalition of activists fought to convince the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to expand its diagnostic criteria for AIDS and through this to compel th... 010
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 09/06/2026#HappyPride! Learn about Marxist-feminist community in Annelise Heinz & Judith Raiskin’s “’It Was Mythic’: Starflower Natural Foods and Lesbian Collective Space,” examining Starflower’s “radical experiment rooted in and oriented toward wider social change.” www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/signs/20...journals.uchicago.eduSigns: Journal of Women in Culture and Society | Vol 51, No 2 000
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 04/06/2026Check out Cati Connell’s “The Lesbian-Identified Lesbian: Lesbian Feminisms for a Post-Binary Future,” urging reconceptualization of gendered and sexual power, toward "a framework for how to live in an increasingly unlivable world.” #Pride www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...journals.uchicago.eduUniversity of Chicago Press Journals: Cookie absent 020
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 01/06/2026Happy #PrideMonth! Revisit the “Lesbian Studies, Now” special issue, which “affirms that to begin with lesbian is to begin with possibilities for survival, solidarity & radical world making” through feminist engagement within a thriving scholarly field. www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/signs/20...journals.uchicago.eduSigns: Journal of Women in Culture and Society | Vol 51, No 1 010
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 29/05/2026Kara Swanson’s discussion of A Woman’s Work digs into Cleghorn’s sweeping history of “patriarchal motherhood,” where across millennia the same story repeats: control over women’s bodies, dressed up as law, medicine, or morality. Check out the new Signs Short Takes here: buff.ly/Bc4sMzN 000
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 29/05/2026What COVID exposed about childcare wasn’t new—it was centuries in the making. Alicia Modestino on A Woman’s Work is a powerful reminder that care has always been essential, and persistently undervalued. Check out her response in our latest Short Takes: buff.ly/Bc4sMzN 020
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 29/05/2026From ancient midwives to modern activists, Elinor Cleghorn's A Woman's Work spans 3000+ years of maternal resistance. Join Alicia Modestino, Amanda Montei, and Kara Swanson in conversation, here: buff.ly/Bc4sMzN 000
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 28/05/2026“Mothering beyond the biological” is a radical, historical practice. In her comment on A Woman’s Work, Amanda Montei traces how histories of care, coercion, and resistance unsettle both tradwife nostalgia and liberal “choice” feminism. Read our new Short Takes here:buff.lyElinor Cleghorn’s A Woman’s WorkAlicia Modestino, Amanda Montei, and Kara W. Swanson discuss Elinor Cleghorn’s A Woman’s Work, with a response from Cleghorn! 000
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 28/05/2026In our new Short Takes, Alicia Modestino, Amanda Montei, and Kara Swanson discuss Elinor Cleghorn’s A Woman’s Work, which challenges patriarchal constructions of motherhood and documents grassroots movements for bodily autonomy and maternal agency. Read it here! signsjournal.org/elinor-clegh...signsjournal.orgElinor Cleghorn’s A Woman’s WorkAlicia Modestino, Amanda Montei, and Kara W. Swanson discuss Elinor Cleghorn’s A Woman’s Work, with a response from Cleghorn! 010
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 27/05/2026New Short Takes just published! Alicia Modestino, Amanda Montei, and Kara W. Swanson discuss Elinor Cleghorn's new book A Woman's Work: Reclaiming the Radical History of Motherhood. Check it out for free!signsjournal.orgElinor Cleghorn’s A Woman’s WorkAlicia Modestino, Amanda Montei, and Kara W. Swanson discuss Elinor Cleghorn’s A Woman’s Work, with a response from Cleghorn! 000
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 13/05/2026"The knowledge that feminist theory has produced has permeated the humanities and interpretive social sciences. The reason we're a target is because there's no going back. The work that we've done is everywhere." — @jennifercnash.bsky.social of @feministstudies.bsky.socialsignsjournal.orgFeminist Scholarly Writing under Authoritarianism, a Conversation with Debjani Chakravarty, Patti Duncan, and Jennifer C. NashEditors of the interdisciplinary journals Feminist Studies, Feminist Formations, Frontiers, and Signs discuss the second Trump administration’s attacks on women’s and gender studies. 021
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 13/05/2026“If institutions can fold, they can also unfold.” — Debjani Chakravarty, coeditor of @frontiersjournal.bsky.social Our new Ask a Feminist looks at backlash against gender studies and the stubborn survival of feminist scholarship in the US context and beyond.signsjournal.orgFeminist Scholarly Writing under Authoritarianism, a Conversation with Debjani Chakravarty, Patti Duncan, and Jennifer C. NashEditors of the interdisciplinary journals Feminist Studies, Feminist Formations, Frontiers, and Signs discuss the second Trump administration’s attacks on women’s and gender studies. 000
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 12/05/2026"As crises get stacked, we are in need of new forms to address them." Patti Duncan, editor of Feminist Formations, discusses the proliferation of genres and methods in response to the current moment. Read or listen at the link!signsjournal.orgFeminist Scholarly Writing under Authoritarianism, a Conversation with Debjani Chakravarty, Patti Duncan, and Jennifer C. NashEditors of the interdisciplinary journals Feminist Studies, Feminist Formations, Frontiers, and Signs discuss the second Trump administration’s attacks on women’s and gender studies. 021
Reposted by Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and SocietyFeminist Studies Journal @feministstudies.bsky.social · 12/05/2026Scholarly journal editors talking about feminist scholarly writing under authoritarianism. Thanks @signsjournal.org for including us! 076
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 12/05/2026What does it mean to mentor feminist grad students when programs are shrinking and jobs are disappearing? Editors describe using the editorial process itself as feminist mentoring and solidarity work. New Ask a Feminist, out now!signsjournal.orgFeminist Scholarly Writing under Authoritarianism, a Conversation with Debjani Chakravarty, Patti Duncan, and Jennifer C. NashEditors of the interdisciplinary journals Feminist Studies, Feminist Formations, Frontiers, and Signs discuss the second Trump administration’s attacks on women’s and gender studies. 011
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 12/05/2026Programs closing, departments under attack, digital hate campaigns, AI reshaping publishing—how can feminist journals respond? Hear editors from across the field think through crisis, strategy, & care in our new Ask a Feminist w/ @jennifercnash.bsky.social, Debjani Chakravarty, & Patti Duncan.signsjournal.orgFeminist Scholarly Writing under Authoritarianism, a Conversation with Debjani Chakravarty, Patti Duncan, and Jennifer C. NashEditors of the interdisciplinary journals Feminist Studies, Feminist Formations, Frontiers, and Signs discuss the second Trump administration’s attacks on women’s and gender studies. 040
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society @signsjournal.org · 12/05/2026New Ask a Feminist! Editors from @feministstudies.bsky.social, @frontiersjournal.bsky.social, Feminist Formations, and Signs explore how Trump 2.0's attacks on WGS are affecting the production of feminist scholarship. Read or listen for free!signsjournal.orgFeminist Scholarly Writing under Authoritarianism, a Conversation with Debjani Chakravarty, Patti Duncan, and Jennifer C. NashEditors of the interdisciplinary journals Feminist Studies, Feminist Formations, Frontiers, and Signs discuss the second Trump administration’s attacks on women’s and gender studies. 041