Living

"I've never gotten a black eye or a busted lip”

Jennifer Lopez says in a new book that she has “felt abused” in past relationships, even if she’s never been physically harmed like other women.

“I’ve never gotten a black eye or a busted lip,” the singer writes in her upcoming book True Love, which is previewed in People magazine. “But I’ve felt abused in one way or another: mentally, emotionally, verbally.”

“I would never go into specifics about my relationships, and I don’t,” Lopez tells People of the book. “But the idea was that I learned something.”

The 45-year-old opens up about her past trials in love, including her three marriages and several high-profile courtships.

“You have to take control and you have to set up your own boundaries,” Lopez tells People of what she’s learned in relationships. ” You have the power to change it.”

Read more at People

America’s top universities may be teaching a dangerous lesson about tanning.

Twelve percent of the nation’s top colleges and universities have tanning beds on campus, and nearly half have them either on campus or in off-campus housing, according to a report published online Wednesday in JAMA Dermatology.

The video has more than 8.1 million views on YouTube and over 42,000 comments

A woman featured in a video that showed her being harassed as walked the streets of New York City has received at least 10 death and rape threats since the video went viral.

Some of the threats have gone directly to Shoshanna Roberts’ personal email accounts, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The video, “10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman,” had over 8.1 million views on YouTube as of late Wednesday afternoon, and many derogatory comments—including one that says “this is exactly why women aren’t supposed to leave the kitchen.”

Despite the backlash, the video, which was created by the anti-street harassment organization “Hollaback!”, has become the latest fodder in an ongoing conversation about street harassment. You can see the video below.

Many students were uncertain about what qualified as sexual violence -- even the ones who experienced assault

A new survey of student experiences with sexual assault at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is an encouraging step for schools working to put an end to the shamefully widespread problem of campus rape.

That the prestigious school released the study publicly is helpful in erasing the stigma surrounding sexual assault. And the numbers show that even an institution far better known for Fields Medals than frat parties has an incidence of campus rape comparable to other colleges. Roughly 35% of MIT’s 11,000 graduates and undergraduates took the anonymous survey. Of the undergrads, about 17% of women and 5% of men reported experiencing sexual assault while at the Massachusetts school.

But a deeper look at the numbers points to a more troubling statistic. Even though 17% of female undergraduates reported an experience that fits the survey’s definition of sexual assault (“unwanted sexual behaviors … involving use of force, physical threat, or incapacitation”), only 11% of female undergraduates checked “yes” when asked directly if they had been “raped” or “sexually assaulted.” Despite a concerted effort by the Obama Administration, state officials and campus leaders, MIT students were uncertain about what qualified as sexual violence — even when reporting that they had experienced assault.

Sadly, that’s not exactly surprising. Experts say there are numerous reasons students struggle to understand the definition of sexual assault, including denial about the experience and and the hesitation to apply the label to attackers or those who experience it. “There is still such a stigma to be a ‘rape victim’ or a ‘rapist,'” says Jane Stapleton, a University of New Hampshire researcher and expert in sexual assault prevention.

The MIT survey also indicated a tendency among undergraduates to blame victims, including themselves, for assaults that had taken place. Fifteen percent of female undergraduate respondents and 25% of male undergraduates said that a drunk person who is assaulted is “at least somewhat responsible” for what happened, while 31% of female undergraduate respondents and 35% of males said they believed that sexual assault and rape “happen because men can get carried away in sexual situations once they’ve started.”

Of students who said they had been assaulted, many blamed themselves, which may explain why so few of them decided to report the incident. Of the assault victims, 72% said they didn’t think it was “serious enough to officially report” and 44% said they “felt they were at least partly at fault or it wasn’t totally the other person’s fault.”

These attitudes are somewhat incongruous with the fact that assault victims also reported having felt a great deal of trauma because of the assault–35% reported being unable to complete assignment and 30% reported being unable to eat. Only about 5% of respondents to MIT’s survey reported the experience to someone in an official capacity.

MIT Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart says part of the challenge in reducing assault is educating students about all the forms it takes. “We can’t prevent what is not agreed upon by everyone,” she says.

Barnhart says that MIT has had an increase in reported sexual misconduct since the survey was advertised last spring, a sign that awareness is growing.

Still, as Stapleton says, “it’s going to take time to change the culture.”

She'll be on the cover of Elle's feminism issue in December

The Harry Potter star and new UN Women Goodwill ambassador will grace the cover of ELLE‘s feminism-themed December issue.

In a sneak-peak at the full interview from ELLE’s U.K. website, here’s what she has to say about feminism:

“Feminism is not here to dictate to you. It’s not prescriptive, it’s not dogmatic. All we are here to do is give you a choice. If you want to run for President, you can. If you don’t, that’s wonderful, too.”

Watson also said her upbringing helped influence her ideas about feminism:

“I’m lucky I was raised to believe that my opinion at the dinner table was valuable. My mum and I spoke as loudly as my brothers.”

The British star made waves last month when she spoke at the UN He for She event about the importance of feminism for both women and men.

[ELLE]

Long before pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin pancakes and, well, pumpkin everything, came the humble orange pumpkin. Here, some fascinating trivia you might not know about fall’s signature vegetable (er, fruit)

This article originally appeared on RealSimple.com.

1. The Jack-o-Lantern tradition dates back centuries, when people in Ireland decorated turnips and potatoes with scary faces to frighten away a scary character named “Stingy Jack,” who, accoring to an old myth, roamed the Earth after his death, as the History Channel tells the story. Irish immigrants then brought the practice to the U.S., where it was adapted to the native pumpkins.

2. Pumpkins were first grown in Central America. They’ve grown in North America for 5,000 years, and today, about 95% of the pumpkins processed in the U.S. are grown in Illinois, according to the University of Illinois. Morton, Illinois calls itself the “Pumpkin Capital of the World” (supposedly processing 80% of the world’s canned pumpkin).

(MORE: 8 Easy Halloween Hairstyles)

3. Though the original Cinderella story dates back to about the 1st century B.C., the detail about the pumpkin turning into a carriage reportedly wasn’t added until 1697, in a French version by Charles Perrault called “Cendrillon.”

4. One cup of mashed pumpkin contains a whopping 245% of your recommended daily intake of Vitamin A, plus 19% of your Vitamin C and 8 percent of your iron). That’s a veritable superfood (just not in latte form—pumpkin spice lattes typically don’t include actual pumpkins, only the spice mix).

(MORE: Easy Halloween Cupcakes)

5. When it comes to baking, 2- to 8-pound varieties are your best bets for flavor and density. Save the big ones for carving.

6. The United States produces more than one billion pounds of pumpkins each year.

(MORE: Which Halloween Candy Is Healthier?)

7. A pumpkin is technically a fruit, and a member of the gourd family. Their botanical name is Cucurbita maxima, C. moschata, C. argyrosperma, and they require 75 to 100 frost-free days to grow, meaning they need to be planted by late May to early July to be ready in time for Halloween.

8. The Guinness World Record for the Heaviest Pumpkin is currently held by Ron Wallace in the United States for his 2,009-pound pumpkin, presented at the New England Giant Pumpkin Weigh-off at Topsfield Fair in Topsfield, Massachusetts in September 2012.

(MORE: 16 Silly Halloween Costumes for Pets)

9. The oldest pumpkin seeds date back 8,000 to 10,000 years.

10. According to the American Pie Council (yup, there is such a thing), pumpkin is America’s secondfavorite kind of pie. Nineteen percent report preferring apple pie, compared to 13% for pumpkin.

(MORE: 8 Cute Toddler Halloween Costumes)

In her new book, Jill Lepore explores how the suffragist movement, Fascism and the lie detector inspired the creation of the most popular female superhero of all time

Even the most devout Wonder Woman fanatics probably didn’t know that the heroine’s creator, William Moulton Marston, a psychologist, lived with and had children with two women at the same time. They also probably didn’t know that he had slightly strange theories about the benefits of bondage. Nor is it common knowledge that the character, which debuted in 1942, was inspired by the leaders of the suffragist movement.

In her new book, The Secret History of Wonder Woman, which hits shelves Tuesday, New Yorker writer and Harvard professor Jill Lepore delves into the life of the man who created Wonder Woman. The book comes just as Wonder Woman is swooping back into the cultural consciousness with her invisible jet. Israeli actress Gal Gadot will play Wonder Woman in 2016’s Batman vs. Superman and will get her own solo film in 2017.

Here’s just some of what Lepore uncovered:

1. Wonder Woman was inspired by Margaret Sanger (and other suffragists)

Creator William Moulton Marston, a psychologist, was deeply interested in gender dynamics, women’s rights and the suffragist movement.

He also fell in love with one of his students at Tufts, Olive Byrne, who eventually lived in his house with him and his wife in a sort of polyamorous relationship. Byrne happened to be Sanger’s niece, and Byrne’s mother, Ethel, and Sanger together opened what eventually became the first Planned Parenthood in 1916.

When Marston hired a woman named Joy Hummel to help him write Wonder Woman, Olive Byrne handed her one book to use as background: Margaret Sanger’s Woman and the New Race.

2. There’s a reason she’s bound up all the time

A recurring plot point in the early Wonder Woman comics was that if the superhero was bound by a man in chains she would lose all her Amazonian powers. So Wonder Woman was bound—a lot. This choice was partly inspired by the suffragists who chained themselves to buildings during protests and used chain symbolism to represent men’s oppression of women. But Marston was also preoccupied, perhaps even obsessed with, bondage.

He had a theory that women enjoyed submission and bondage and teaching young girls of that virtue was one of the purposes of the comic: “This, my dear friend, is the one truly great contribution of my Wonder Woman strip to moral education of the young,” Marsten wrote to his publisher after he was accused of sadism. “The only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound force to enjoy being found—enjoy submission to kind authority, wise authority.”

Wonder Woman’s subjugation was extremely controversial: Wonder Woman was banned in the 1940s because of the overt sexual nature of both her dress and the sexual nature of her near-constant bondage.

3. Wonder Woman was partly a response to the rise of the Nazis

The first comic book superhero, Superman, hit the stands in 1938. But shortly thereafter, comics came under fire: critics said Superman could be interpreted as a fascist—an all-powerful ubermensch that would have a negative influence on American children. (Remember, the rise of the superhero coincides with the rise of Nazi Germany.) Parents demand that the books be burned.

Superman publisher, M.C. Gaines, reads an article written by Olive Byrne for Family Circle saying that comic books might be good for kids. Gaines asks Marsten to help him save comic books, and Marston recommends a female superhero, reasoning that comic books are too violent and need a touch of femininity. Enter Wonder Woman.

4. The Lasso of Truth had a real-life parallel in Marston’s life

In the Wonder Woman comics, the heroine’s Lasso of Truth forces anyone in its snare to be honest. The weapon was likely inspired by Marston’s own creation of the lie-detector test in 1913. The basic test consisted of taking someone’s blood pressure as they answered questions. Any elevation in blood pressure signaled a subject’s guilt. In 1923, Marston fought to have results of his updated lie detector test used in courtrooms. But the courts rejected the machine, citing too high a frequency of error.

Marston was none-too-happy with this conclusion. In an autobiographical moment in the comics, Wonder Woman tries to get confessions made with the help of her Lasso of Truth admissible in court.

5. Wonder Woman was designed as a feminist icon

Anyone who has read Wonder Woman comics will be able to recognize the feminist underpinnings of her story. But readers probably don’t know that Marston broke from the rest of popular culture by asserting not only that kids would be interested in reading a comic about a woman but that she would be essential to their education in teaching them about gender equality.

“Like her male prototype, ‘Superman,’ ‘Wonder Woman’ is gifted with tremendous physical strength,” Marston wrote in the press release announcing her creation. “‘Wonder Woman’ has bracelets welded on her wrists; with these she can repulse bullets. But if she lets any man weld chains on these bracelets, she loses her power. This, says Dr. Marston, is what happens to all women when they submit to a man’s domination.”

He concludes: “‘Wonder Woman’ was conceived by Dr. Marston to set up a standard among children and young people of strong, free, courageous womanhood; and to combat the idea that women are inferior to men, and to inspire girls to self-confidence and achievement in athletics, occupations and professions monopolized by men.”

6. Despite that, she started out in the Justice Society as a secretary

Wonder Woman was admitted to the Justice Society with heroes like The Flash and Green Lantern after a survey of comic book readers found that the vast majority of girls and boys wanted her there.

But in a 1942 comic penned by Justice Society writer Gardner Fox, all the superheroes get to go off to fight the Nazis, except for Wonder Woman who must stay home and reply to the mail. Marsten was, of course, infuriated by this turn of events.

7. Wonder Woman has run for president in the comic books twice

Wonder Woman ran for office in a comic book written by Marston in 1943, and then again in a cover story in Ms. magazine in 1972. She didn’t win either time. Maybe she should try for 2016.