Avoiding the Gatekeepers

Avoiding the Gatekeepers

SHE Fellow Aiesha D. Little discusses jazz, gatekeeping and staying true to yourself in any fandom. I was a teenager when I started to like jazz. In high school, my marching band director played John Coltrane and Miles Davis in his office, the notes wafting in...
#MeToo & Star Trek: Discovery

#MeToo & Star Trek: Discovery

Friday, March 9, 2018, marks the release of Season Two of Netflix’s landmark show, Jessica Jones. The central storylines of Season One focus on the titular character Jones, brilliantly portrayed by Krysten Ritter, as she dealt with the fallout,...
On Gender-Swap & Crossplay

On Gender-Swap & Crossplay

Convention season is coming, and right now many cosplayers are elbows deep in bolts of material and the air around them is thick and warm with the smell of soldered metal and melting plastic. Convention season is coming, and the cosplayers will be ready. In the world...
Let’s Talk About Rey & Jessica Jones

Let’s Talk About Rey & Jessica Jones

Stop what you’re doing because if you haven’t watched the Netflix series Jessica Jones or Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I am about to ruin both for you. So hard. I like to think of myself as a generally decent person, so I don’t want to be the...

A Woman on the Throne

I was an avid consumer of fantasy and science fiction growing up, and some of my favorite stories were about women in sexist societies achieving things that they were told they were not allowed to do, often pretending to be men in order to accomplish those goals. It...