Spare Change News

Category: Gender and Sexuality

  • Power and Privilege in the Anthony Weiner Sex Scandal

    From looking at mainstream coverage of Anthony Weiner’s ongoing scandals, it would seem there are only two possible positions to take on the embattled politician. On one side are those who denounce Weiner’s sexting and lies as disqualifying him from office. On the other are those, mostly liberals and progressives, who argue that Weiner’s behavior…

  • Risky Business: Turning to Sex for Survival

    When Travis turned his first trick, he still had an apartment in Roslindale and a job as a retail clerk. He was doing “well enough” financially until January 2010, when his shifts were cut to just five hours per week. His housemate helped him pay his rent for as long as she could. He looked…

  • Homelessness Representation in Pride Week

    Boston Pride Week has grown massively over its forty-year history. What was once a few marchers and ralliers is now a massive celebration that brings people, organizations, churches, local businesses and, for better or worse, large corporations around the rainbow flag. In fact, the 2013 parade saw a record, setting 230 groups march. While Mass.…

  • Finding a Place for LGBTQ Homeless Youth

    It was a bright summer day in Cambridge when I first walked into the shelter run by Youth on Fire (YOF) near Harvard Square. A program of the AIDS Committee of Massachusetts, YOF provides necessary services to homeless youth ages 14 to 24. As my eyes adjusted to the dimmed light, I was greeted with…

  • Are Female Veterans Being Left Out In The Cold?

    After leaving the U.S. Air Force, Staff Sergeant Barbara Barnes spent years living in fear of stray shadows and sudden noises that could trigger flashbacks to trauma from her days of military service. Barnes never served abroad or saw combat. She served as an administrative officer from 1984 to 1990, processing legal documents on military…

  • Down and Out in Boston: Massachusetts Women Encounter Great Economic Hardship

    Although Cambridge and its sisters Boston and Quincy remain economically prosperous and have a combined population of 830,000 people and 430,000 women, women still have a higher poverty rate than men. Cambridge, the home of Spare Change News, has a population of 105,000 people. The Cambridge household income has almost doubled from $55,000 to $95,000…

  • American Manhood

    James Baldwin has taught me a lot about being a man. More specifically he taught me how to be a man who is whole. This has not come without great pain, sacrifice and loss. Along the way to wholeness the stupefying effects of my attempt to live into the American idea of masculinity, which by…

  • Just Don’t Go

    James Shearer Spare Change News Not that anybody asked me … but all this noise about the Chick-Fil-A controversy is, in a word, just noise. The owner of this fast food chain, one Mr. Dan Cathy, made some remarks several weeks ago that his company is all about “family values” and that he himself is…

  • The Rise of Women’s Boxing: From Local Gym to Olympic Arena

    Noelle Swan Spare Change News No sooner had the bell rung than Jamie Jacobsen’s fist connected with my nose. Instantly, my eyes welled up with water and a cold chill set in all over my body. By the second round, my nose had swelled up beyond utility, leaving me struggling to learn how to breathe…

  • Women On The Rise: Cambridge Organization Forges Personal Relationships within the Growing Female Homeless Community

    Zachary Goldhammer Spare Change News On The Rise, the name of the Cambridge women’s day shelter located at 341 Broadway in Cambridge, has recently taken on a new meaning. The phrase not only represents the ideological aims of the program—to rehabilitate women who have been left on the streets—but also an unfortunate reality: the number…