If you know your punk history, you know the name Alice Bag is one of significance. As a Latina, and as frontperson and vocalist of the iconic band the Bags, Alice Bag pioneered the Los Angeles punk scene in the 1970s. Breaking into an underground scene, which predominantly consisted of sweaty white dudes thrashing about, Bag was confrontational, political, and brazenly feminist. She paved the way for artists, particularly women and people of color, who aspired to make music that deviated from and aggressively defied… Read more

Instagram star Bunny Lucille is bringing curvy pin-up cartoon Hilda (illustrated by Duane Bryers) to life with beautiful, body-positive photos that recreate the 1950s illustrations. While she modernizes some of the pictures, like swapping out a mirror for an iPhone selfie, she gets other details down to a T, like bikinis made of flowers, a slice of watermelon with exactly two bites, and an unbuttoned red onesie. Even though she has 50,000+ followers, she still has to deal with the criticism from trolls. When one hater… Read more

Pussy Riot, the badass feminist punk collective, has started a Kickstarter to help with their newest project. According to the site, the project is “a breakthrough immersive theatre production to remind us what is worth fighting for.” Pussy Riot has teamed up with Les Enfants Terribles to make an immersive experience that will allow participants to feel what it's like to be in a Russian Prison. It’s meant to remind the participants of their freedoms but putting them in replicas of the Russian cells that Pussy Riot… Read more

Fashion photographer Tarik Carroll wants to take the body positivity conversation in a new direction — by focusing on men. His EveryMan Project reimagines '90s fashion ads with a group of men of various races, sizes, sexualities, and gender identities — and the first set of photos, featuring plus size male model Marquis Neal along with other men, went viral as soon as it was released. Along with the images, Carroll is also gathering a collection of essays about men's experiences with their bodies, which he'll put into… Read more

On Monday, Mindy Kaling announced that she’s pregnant with Mini Kaling and as per usual, the people of the internet were all a flutter, obviously forgetting that babies can’t write good workplace comedies until they’re at least 15 years old. It’s only a matter of time before the Mindy-centric or tangentially Mindy-related thinkpieces begin making their rounds, so to prepare, here’s a preview of the 15 articles you’ll see. 1. Single mothers are the future of feminism2. Women have been single mothers for a long time now:… Read more

In a dimly lit Bed-Stuy kitchen, Aiyana Knauer and Laurel Leckert squint at their Macbooks. Behind them hangs a poster reading “Capitalism is a pyramid scheme”; the faint whine of an accordion drifts in from upstairs. Leckert swigs occasionally from a beer bottle. They’re working on issue three of the “Shout Your Abortion” zine, a collection of personal narratives from people who’ve had abortions. “Zines are something both of us have grown up with,” says Leckert, who’s 34 and works multiple jobs: she teaches… Read more

On September 11, 2017, NYC artist duo McDermott & McGough (who achieved notoriety in the 1980s for their self-imposed immersion in Victorian era — a “time experiment” that encompassed their dress, home, art studios and more) will unveil their Oscar Wilde Temple. The Temple is “an ambitious public installation work two decades in the making, conceived as a welcoming secular space to honor one of the earliest and most courageous forebears in the centuries-long struggle for gay liberation and to celebrate the fight for… Read more

A bill is in the works in Alaska that would ban cops from engaging in sexual contact with the sex workers they are investigating. Penetration between a sex worker and the cop investigating them is currently illegal in all 50 states, but Alaska would be the first state to ban all sexual contact. The ongoing conflict is between the cops and the sex workers. The cops say that not being able to touch the sex workers will make them unable to hide their identity as cops. The sex workers feel that having sex with someone and… Read more

The original 1971 rendition of The Beguiled is a subtle, snaking psycho-sexual thriller, in which we watch Clint Eastwood — in the same year and paired with the same director as Dirty Harry — visually peruse and victimize a school full of school-aged girls and their female teachers. The movie is a sprawling invitation to the male gaze, in which one woman after another falls into the honey-trap of McBurney (Eastwood’s) obviously manufactured flirtations. It’s a movie tailor-made to fall into Sofia Coppola’s hands and… Read more

Poptarts is a twice-monthly podcast hosted by BUST Magazine editors Emily Rems and Callie Watts that celebrates women in pop culture. The first half of each episode is devoted to a hot topic in entertainment, and in the second half, a segment called "Whatcha Watchin'?," Callie and Emily dig into all the shows, movies, books, music, videos, and podcasts they've enjoyed since the last episode, and either praise or pan each experience. In this episode, author Kristen J. Sollee chats about her new book, Witches, Sluts,… Read more

At 18, outspoken actor and activist Amandla Stenberg has already been called “one of the new guards of feminism.” Here, the Hunger Games star opens up about her girlhood, her gender, and her goals as a woman on the verge of some very big things. Note: Amandla uses both she/her and they/them pronouns. When I call Amandla Stenberg on a Saturday morning I’m still in my pajamas, which turns out to be the perfect attire: she tells me that she’s lying in bed in her hotel room in Atlanta, where she’s on location filming her… Read more

It’s hard to believe that it’s been six months since the Women’s March. On January 21, 2017, people from all seven continents participated in a worldwide demonstration against the Trump/Pence regime. (May I remind there was not a single arrest?) There has been so much to do in so little time, and so it seems that every time we log into Twitter there is a new Trump scandal. This constant threat to our democracy and freedoms has only added more fuel to the resistance, and has kept our heads in the game. Our numbers are… Read more

Here at BUST, we’ve been superfans of Jenny Slate for ages, and we’ve been thrilled to watch her skyrocketing movie career. Slate’s latest film is Landline, an ensemble dramedy co-written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, who previously wrote and directed Obvious Child, which also starred Slate. Landline has a stellar cast, co-starring Edie Falco, Abby Quinn, John Turturro, Jay Duplass, and Finn Wittrock, but Slate, who also executive produced, is really the star here. She plays a young woman, Dana, who seems to… Read more

Fast cars, big guns, and Taraji P. Henson "dressed in all black like The Omen" taking a bottle of Hennessy to the face as a paid gun. . . TAKE MY MONEY NOW! Set to the tune of “Proud Mary” by Tina Turner, the trailer for the film, also named Proud Mary, is a barrage of scenes of Taraji as a lone assassin kicking ass and looking unbothered. Directed by Babak Najafi, the film follows Mary, an assassin for an organized crime family in Boston, whose life gets twist-turned upside down when she crosses paths with a young boy… Read more

Say hello to Florence Bearse, who just celebrated her 100th birthday earlier this month in Bangor, Maine. The upbeat centenarian, interviewed by her local television news station WLBZ at the Westgate Center for Rehabilitation, revealed that wine has helped her live a long, happy life. “Oh, I like my wine. Don't take it away from me,” she said, while wearing a pink-and-white Hawaiian lei and a beaded "Birthday Princess" necklace. Bearse, a former restaurant owner and recreational ballroom dancer from Massachusetts, fell… Read more

In the midst of feminist coven Lady Parts Justice League’s 8-week national tour to advocate for reproductive rights, they’re also launching a 10-day public awareness campaign to “engage repro rights supporters, partner organizations, and new activists around the country in online and in-person actions to expose fake clinics.” “What are fake clinics,” you ask? (I did.) No worries, the reason you probably haven’t heard that term is because they call themselves "Crisis Pregnancy Centers” [CPCs]. And by “Crisis Pregnancy… Read more

After a dinner to mark the end of the G20 summit in Hamburg, Trump told, The New York Times “So, I was seated next to the wife of Prime Minister Abe [Shinzo Abe of Japan], who I think is a terrific guy, and she’s a terrific woman, but doesn’t speak English — like not ‘hello.’” Despite the language barrier, the two hour long dinner otherwise went well, Trump explained. “But I enjoyed the evening with her, and she’s really a lovely woman, and I enjoyed — the whole thing was good.” So good in fact, during the same dinner,… Read more

’Tis the season for outdoor music festivals. One of the best happens annually at Lincoln Center in NYC. This year, many prominent female musicians are featured. On July 26th, Rickie Lee Jones performs her classic sophomore release, 1981’s Pirates, in its entirety for NPR’s Turning The Tables series. This series highlights 150 albums record exclusively by a full array of female musicians.The show will also feature performances by rock'n'roll legends Ronnie Spector and Nona Hendryx of Labelle, as well as Alynda Segarra,… Read more

GOP Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), and Shelley Moore Capito (West Virginia) are the three Senators who are working to make sure the Affordable Care Act isn't repealed. The Republican leadership in the Senate wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but the fact that there was no replacement lined up made these three Senators wary of supporting it. All three women released statements against the bill and any attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, especially without a replacement. Majority… Read more

Last night on Full Frontal, our favorite White House critic, Samantha Bee, went after Donald Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity who met for the second time yesterday. The mission of this committee is to investigate the 3 million illegal voters that Trump claimed caused him to lose the popular vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016. Despite no evidence to support that this claim, Donald J. Trump just refuses to let this shit go. Samantha Bee cracked, “Those mythical three million illegal voters are… Read more

This week, the internet barfed with excitement at the news that Mindy Project mastermind and star Mindy Kaling is pregnant with her first child. Naturally, the entertainment world is salivating over the fact that Kaling is single and is not revealing who her child's father is. But here at BUST HQ, we're just happy for her, wishing her well, and enjoying imagining what a great mom she'll be — with or without a co-parent. The news also inspired us to revisit this cover story we did with Kaling for our Oct/Nov 2011 issue,… Read more

A culture of consent is not something you hear about often especially in summer music festivals; however, the people from Our Music My Body are looking to change that. “Our Music My Body is a group of people working to create a safer space at music festivals,” said prevention and education specialist Matt Walsh. “We want everyone to be able to have a good time create an environment that is free of sexual harassment and promotes consent.” The organization is created by two anti-violence agencies in Chicago: Between… Read more

Society has a long way to go in terms of its representation of women. From Jessica Chastain calling out Cannes’ less-than-complex portrayal of its female characters to Andy Murray correcting a reporter that neglected to acknowledge Serena Williams’ accomplishments, it seems that the world still has a difficult time accepting and supporting women in nontraditional roles. When I watched Wonder Woman, it literally moved me to tears because it was so empowering - and so rare - to see a lady with a mind of her own kick ass… Read more

When Jodie Whittaker was announced as the first female Doctor in Doctor Who’s history, I expected there to be some backlash and criticism over the casting, but The Sun and The Daily Mail took it to a whole new level of misogyny with their coverage. They decided the most noteworthy acting in Whittaker’s past was the nude scenes from her movie Venus, and they just had to cover that. They then preceded to screenshot scenes where Whittaker is nude and very loosely relate it to rest of the article. In an article in the… Read more

When Mary Tyler Moore died in January at 80, the world lost a cultural icon whose '70s sit-com changed the way America viewed working women. Think you know the secret to Mary’s success? Then take the quiz! 1. Mary Tyler Moore was born on December 29, 1936, in __________. a. Brooklyn, NY b. Los Angeles, CA c. Winchester, VA d. Paris, France 2. Mary started working at 17, playing a dancing elf named "Happy Hotpoint" in appliance commercials that ran during the TV program __________. a. The Red Skelton Show b. Adventures… Read more

By the time I finish writing this, Galen Hooks, L.A. based choreographer, producer, dancer, advocate, and more (a lot more), will likely have flown 238,900 miles to the moon, performed a killer dance routine in a pair of jet black stilettos, and made it back to New York in time to teach an afternoon intensive class. But that’s to be expected from an extraordinary dancer. For Hooks, busy days (sans space travel) packed with dance classes, intensives, traveling around the world, and helping dancers reach their full… Read more

“The fact is, mere ordinary folk have not the remotest notion of the extravagant extent to which canine pets are pampered nowadays by their highly-placed mistresses.” - The Strand Magazine, 1896. In 1896, an enterprising young lady named Mrs. Nugent opened a fashionable club for dogs at 120 New Bond Street in London. It was called the Dogs’ Toilet Club and offered many services for the pampered pets of the wealthy and well to do, including grooming, pet sitting, veterinary care, and dentistry. For those who wished to… Read more

Based in Chicago, visual artist Laura Berger’s work emotes a space of calmness, yet playful, through her execution of balance and symmetry. Either existing in solitude or intertwined into another, all tiny naked bodies existing to serve a bigger picture, further defining and exploring the human connection. With acrylic and gouache on wood panel, Berger’s pieces explore peace and solitude, while not straying from strength in an all-female space. Berger explains, "I'm interested in and inspired by rituals, symbols,… Read more

There’s no right way to portray Eating Disorders in film and television, but there are many wrong ways. Netflix’s new film To The Bone, while well intentioned, brings nothing of substance to the table. Which raises the question: How can a film written by a person in recovery (producer, director, and writer Marti Noxon), and portrayed by an actress in recovery (Lily Collins has been vocal about her food and body struggles in her new memoir Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me), manage to reinforce so many… Read more

N.Y.C. artist Claudia Gold, better known as Claw Money, turned her notorious ’90s graffiti fame (she was one of the few female artists bombing with the best of them) into a successful fashion line. And in 2015, she opened a retail and vintage boutique, Claw & Co., on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Now she’s launching Claw Beauty (available at clawandco.com) with 12 vibrant nail paints ($10) and five top coats ($10) – one mattifying and four color changing – with signature bags and cosmetics to come in the fall. As a… Read more

Smart phones are invaluable tools — you have access to all of human knowledge on a pocket-sized computer more powerful than the equipment that took men to the moon. There are apps available for everything from budgeting to dating, and so much in between. If you’re looking for apps to help you get smart about your sexual health, here are seven to get you started — or at least point you in the right direction.1. Clue Period Tracker Keeping track of your period is a great way to understand your sexual health, but no one… Read more

The future is female, fierce, and dropped some dope words of truth at the Chicago Pitchfork festival June 14. Who better to kick off the festival this past weekend than singer and writer Madame Gandhi? No stranger to the Pitchfork music festival, Kiran Gandhi, also known by the stage name Madame Gandhi, first came to Pitchfork in 2013 as the drummer for MIA. 2017 was an even more eventful year for Gandhi being that she was the opener, kicking off the festival with her vision of a feminist utopia. Fun fact, I too was at… Read more

Peppermint, the recent runner-up of RuPaul’s Drag Race, said she's struck by the fact she doesn’t have any home movies. “I've had a lot of amazing experiences, and some of them I don’t even remember,” she said. “I thought, ‘What would happen if my Facebook disappeared?’” This is part of the reason she wanted to start documenting her life on film. “Project Peppermint,” a working title, is reaching the final days of crowdfunding and aims to shed light to Peppermint’s life as a drag queen and a transwoman. Filming began… Read more

Mindy Kaling is pregnant... we think. Still no official word, via Instagram, a la Beyonce style, from the The Mindy Project and A Wrinkle In Time star, but according to E!, multiple sources confirmed the 38-year-old comedian is expecting her first child. WE. ARE. SCREAMING! E! also reports from an insider that the news comes as an “unexpected surprise.” However, Kaling has always been candid about motherhood. "I think I've decided that unlike everything else in my life, I'm going to be fast and loose about kids. I'm… Read more

This Friday will mark the 6-month anniversary of the revolutionary Women’s March that took place on January 21, and we’re proud to say the Resistance is still going strong. That doesn’t mean, however, that we’re not becoming exhausted — or worse, unphased — by the day-in day-out bullshit that floods our TVs, browsers, newspapers, and conversations. So if you need a place to replenish your spirit and reclaim your soul, or just a place to connect with your fellow advocates for humanity, Resistance Revival has you… Read more

Our host at The Brattle Theatre in Cambridge introduced The Little Hours as a lot like Massachusetts: full of Catholics dropping f-bombs. The Little Hours certainly delivered with its anachronistic and irreverent comedy as a largely improvised retelling of Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron, directed by Jeff Baena and starring the likes of Aubrey Plaza, Kate Micucci, Alison Brie, John C. Reilly, Dave Franco, Nick Offerman, and Fred Armisen. But, what I found even more enjoyable was its depiction of women and their… Read more

We are so excited to share that Jane the Virgin star Gina Rodriguez is our August/September 2017 cover gal! Over the past few years, we’ve been impressed with the way Gina has spoken out about the importance of diversity both in front of and behind the camera — in terms of race, gender, size and more. Plus, she’s made those of us who are Jane the Virgin fans cry more times than we can count, thanks to her incredible acting skills. Along with gorgeous photos co-starring Gina’s BFF — her dog Casper — our ten-page cover… Read more

R&B; singer R. Kelly is in the headlines for doing awful, creepy shit (again) after a Buzzfeed article hit the internet alleging that Kelly is running an abusive cult. These allegations are supported by claims from the parents of two different women, a 21-yr-old from Georgia and a 19-year-old from Florida, who are now living with Kelly. Three former members of Kelly’s inner circle - Cheryl Mack (previously his personal assistant) and Kitti Jones and Asante McGee (who both said they lived with Kelly and had sexual… Read more

Sharkmuffin celebrate their 5 year anniversary with a new split EP featuring Sharkmuffin and The Off White. Check out their first single, "Where's My Mimosa?" Sharkmuffin, led by grunge-glam Brooklyn babes, Tarra Thiessen and Natalie Kirch, are consistently turning out new music before you even have time to get the old songs out of your head! From their debut LP Chartreuse, featuring Patty Schemel of Hole, to their most recent album Tsuki, plus countless EPs, Sharkmuffin has been hard at work the past five years. Just… Read more

Doctor Who has finally chosen a woman to play the Doctor after 12 men! Yup, that’s over 35 active years of women playing nothing more than sidekicks and love interests until now. Jodie Whittaker stars in the BBC hit show Broadchurch alongside two Doctor Who veterans. BBC announced her as the 13th Doctor through a video, and followed up with an interview so we could get to know our next Doctor a little better. In the interview, she addresses the question of a woman as the Doctor by saying, “I want to tell the fans not… Read more

I first read A Wrinkle In Time when I was in elementary school, and I immediately fell in love with main character Meg Murry because, like her, I was a shy, smart, awkward nerd with three annoying little brothers. And then when I was 12, a film adaptation came out — the 2003 Disney adaptation. I remember sitting down to watch it with said annoying little brothers, my parents, and mountains of popcorn...and I don’t think we even made it through the whole thing, it was that bad. But the shy, smart, awkward preteens of… Read more

The facts are these: my friend Iris*, objectively wonderful and attractive on many different levels, was asked on a date by a TinderDude - let’s call him Douche Canoe (D.C. for short). D.C. requested, after the usual back-and-forth, that Iris meet him at a local brewery on a Tuesday night. Here is what unfolded. - 6:55 pm - Iris arrives at the brewery, which is packed with other young and hip and dreamy people, looks like someone’s living room, and — as is now required of all establishments by law — features some kind… Read more

A book doesn't need 1,000 pages to be revelatory — sometimes short, concise works can be the most powerful. For our book review sidebar in our June/July 2017 issue, we're spotlighting three recentlyp ublished brief books by big-time writers. from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's 80-page tretise on feminism and motherhood, Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto In Fifteen Suggestions, to novelist Tracy Chevalier's 208-page reimagining of a Shakespeare classic, you should be able to read these books in a single afternoon — but… Read more

You’d think by now Trump would’ve learned what is and isn’t appropriate to say. He’s made it clear that he doesn’t know how to treat women properly (that whole "grab ‘em by the pussy" thing I’ve been trying to unhear), but when addressing a politician’s wife, he should know better than to hit on her. While in Paris, he and Melania met with the French President Emmanuel Macron and First Lady Brigitte Macron for a parade in honor of Bastille Day. The whole interaction was uncomfortable, starting with Trump’s 25-second… Read more

Sports movies that star women allow us to see the joys and tribulations female athletes face on a daily basis. Well-known movies, such as A League of Their Own (1992), Bend It Like Beckham (2002) and Girlfight (2000), may come to mind. But how about the stories of everyday women or professional female athletes that don’t necessarily make it to the big silver screen? The Women Sports Film Festival is the world’s first film festival to focus on female athletes – and it’s now gearing up for its second year in California… Read more

A teenage girl in Nepal, Tulasi Shahi, died after being bitten by a snake, twice in her head and once on her leg, while she was banished to a cowshed during a menstruation ritual, writes the New York Times. Shahi, 18, was taking part in Chhaupadi - which translates to “untouchable being”- still a common practice in rural areas, though banned in 2005, in which women, believed to be unclean during menstruation, are sequestered for the duration for their periods. Chhaupadi is not just relegated to menstruation, but also… Read more

I saw Wonder Woman on Saturday. Oh, wow. I had all the reactions everybody else did, and maybe a whole lot more. In my day job, I’m a costume designer, and I can’t ever really turn that off. When I watch something period or fantasy, aside from my usual internal monolog praising or criticizing construction techniques, etc., I often find myself “reverse engineering” the designer’s work, looking for hints about their inspiration or research. Sometimes I can tell exactly which painting, which historical artifact, a… Read more

Beyoncé finally shared a picture of the babies she’s been hiding for a month, and it could't be more perfect. The picture was posted around 1am last night and already has over 6 million likes. The new photo was captioned, “Sir Carter and Rumi 1 month today,” followed by the cutest collection of emojis to make their now family of five. Rumi and Sir Carter lie in Beyoncé’s arms, while Beyoncé wears a sea foam veil that matches her lace underwear and a designer dress that drapes around her feet. She seemingly radiates a… Read more

No sex manual is one-size-fits-all. But for larger ladies, erotic instruction that meets the specific needs of big bodies is a rarity. That’s why Curvy Girl Sex: 101 Body-Positive Positions to Empower Your Sex Life by Elle Chase is such a fantastic find. Illustrated with cute drawings, the guide makes suggestions for pregnant women; points out positions perfect for those with a larger stomach, butt, or thighs; and even helps users accommodate weakness in the back, knees, or arms. With so many bases covered, there’s… Read more

While it should be clear to all of us that Serena Williams is a boss, one journalist’s casual sexism (aka failure to acknowledge her accomplishments as a woman) suggests otherwise. Thankfully, British tennis star Andy Murray was there to remind him. (Watch the clip at the bottom of this post for the real deal.) Murray had just lost the Wimbledon quarterfinals to American Sam Querray when a journalist started a question with: “Andy, Sam is the first American player to reach the semi-final of a Slam since 2009...” Murray… Read more