Moon Women
In Moxie's
issue on sheroes, role models and heroines, I explained that just as there are four
phases of the moon, there seem to be four "types" of women... (more)Darla
I still remember what Darla wore that day, in the summer after my college graduation, when she walked into the U.S. Senate committee meeting room where I sat among a dozen other young women in my tweedy suit and plain, long-sleeved blouse... (more)
Katherine Hepburn: A Model of Self-Confidence
When Katherine Hepburn came on to the Hollywood scene in the 1930s, hers was not an overnight success story. Even after Bringing Up Baby (directed by Howard Hawks), in which she plays a flighty heiress who falls for an absent-minded osteologist (Cary Grant), Hepburn was labeled "box-office poison" by the studios and, in essence, blackballed... (more)
One Out of the Crowd
"Emily, please pass the rice." That would be dad, parental guardian/fellow tree-hugger. I have been a tree-hugger since birth, vegetarian since fourth grade and dad? Well he got better with age. It was warm in the kitchen of our humble Wisconsin home, and our borderline functional family was sitting at the dinner table ingesting mom's latest god-awful creation...(more)
Watch Your Language
One morning during the impeachment hearings, I was walking to class, sleepy, grumpy, and hungry. A very well dressed woman walked up to me and asked if I had seen the Clinton testimony as it aired. Sure, I had accidentally seen about two minutes. She wanted to know what my gut reaction was. We chatted. Then she asked me if I would mind saying everything I'd just said on camera...(more)
Sepia Memories In the Cold Light of Day
When I was a child, my grandmothers seemed perfect. They cooked better than my parents, had more time for me, and weren't around for the day-to-day conflicts I indulged in with my nuclear family. But as I grew up, I learned about their varied pasts, and my view of them was tainted forever...(more)
From Markham to Madonna
Beryl Markham is Moxie's prototypical shero. As a child growing up on a farm in Kenya, she tracked wildebeest and leopard through the veld and hunted barefoot with a spear. In 1936 she became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic, from England to North America. A true Amazon, she never got bogged down by emotional attachments. We admire her, and her memoir, West With the Night. She is as intriguing in her era as Madonna is in ours. Both of them are free in heart and mind.
An Aussie's View of President Clinton's Impeachment - NOT
I am in almost terminal shock at the revelation by the Republican Party that a politician lied to the public. And it was such an important lie. So much more important than Jack Kennedy's firm statement that the U.S.A. was not involved in the Bay of pigs invasion...(more)
Bird's Words
Walking casually through the living room of her modest west Austin home, Sarah Bird passes a director's chair marked "The Boyfriend School" and steps out onto her back porch, looking disapprovingly at her lawn chairs... (more)
Strong Wills from the War Zone
Until last summer, Sanja, 18, lived with her mother in Sarajevo. But Sanja left her homeland to come to San Francisco to live with the family of Lois Melkonian, KCBS news anchor. Melkonian is something of an expert on Bosnia... (more)
ONE
JEWISH BOY
I've only ever dated one Jewish boy, but he had a nasty little cocaine
habit and the whole relationship only lasted about 2 weeks because he
decided to shack up with his sugar daddy in Beverly Hills. I'm sure
that my grandmother wouldn't believe that an educated Jewish boy from
New York would have any kind of drug habit, let alone be a... (more)
BUST - Y
ROLE MODELS
BUST proclaims itself "the voice of the new girl order," and
it just may well be true. This gutsy, glittery girl-power zine turned
magazine was conceived by editors Debbie Stoller, Marcelle Karp, and
art director Laurie Henzel in 1993. They felt that mainstream women's
magazines didn't reflect the reality of... (more)
BIG
BROTHERS FOR ELEPHANTS
In South Africa's Pilanesberg National Park, 20 white rhinos turned up
dead in a year. Officials believed that at least 10 were killed by
elephants, and elephants were among the suspects in at least five
other cases. Why would these animals... (more)
MTV'S
FANatic:
IS IT HERE FOR GOOD OR EVIL?
Last summer, MTV introduced a slew of new "music-oriented"
shows. Both for its content and packaging, FANatic--where fans get to
meet their favorite celebrities and we get to watch--was a standout
among them. Its premise is positive and simple: celebrities serve as
role models. The first time I watched it, I had a hard time taking it
seriously. As happens when I... (more)
MRS.
GAMMON
My inspiration to become a writer came early--the first grade, to be
exact! I had a rough childhood because my parents had really hoped for
a boy. Everyday, I heard litanies like, "Well, if you were the
son we'd hoped for, you could be off hunting with your dad." When
everyone else marched off the kindergarten in stiffly starched Sears
& Roebuck style, I was kept home to... (more)
HERO-WORSHIP,
WHEREVER YOU FIND IT
Moxie found this website about a girl whose life was changed by Janet
Weiss (Quasi, Sleater-Kinney) before she even met her. Here's the
first part of her story. You can look at... (more)
DARK
LADIES AND LUNAR BLOOD
"Women can write some things, but not the other things,"
says G. Micki Hayden author of Pacific Empire (ISBN 0965792919),
"I write the other things." Micki's
novel is a dazzling work of alternative history employing meticulous
research to create... (more)
MY ROLE MODEL: MY MOM
To write about my role models, I could have picked teachers, I could have picked
people extremely influential in their field, and I could have picked models and other
aesthetically pleasing individuals. But instead, I found the perfect combination
of all three: my mother. There isn't one person on this earth... (more)
WHITE
ROSE
The courage and guts that it's taken my mother in order to fight
cancer truly makes her a "Moxie" woman in my eyes.
Mom: This one's for you - a truly "Moxie" woman.
Love, Nic
In a time when newspapers and magazines adorning our supermarket
shelves talk of nothing but presidential scandals, deception and lies,
it is difficult for the average American to...
(more)
LADY
SHIKIBU MURASAKI
Single
Mother and Widow Writes the World's First Novel and No One Notices
Had she been a man, Lady Shikibu Murasaki would now be regularly
studied in schools throughout the world. In Japan, she's known as the
writer of what may be the single greatest work of Japanese literature
ever, "The Tale of Genji." Yet around the rest of the world,
while...
(more)
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