Kristina Marusic

Bustle • January 2 2018

Who Will Take Care Of Me If I Don't Have Kids?

I'm 33 and childless, and I'm pretty sure I want to remain that way forever. Most of the time, I feel secure about my decision to never have children. But it does raise some questions. For one, I wonder who will take care of me when I'm an old woman—a question people seem to bring up anytime I reveal my plans to skip motherhood.

Bustle • October 11 2017

Stockpiles, Self-Reliance, & Survival Skills:€” How Some Women Are Preparing For Our Uncertain Future

Kristen Tyler, a 36-year-old Portland resident who works as the director of recruiting for a software company, has spent the last decade learning how to be an effective prepper. If a major disaster happens — in her city, her country, or the world — Tyler wants to have everything she'd need to survive on her own.

Contrary to popular belief, not all preppers are religious folks preparing for an apocalyptic doomsday.

Bustle • September 15 2017

How I Ditched My Promise Ring, And Along With It, Any Shame I Had About My Sexuality

On my 16th birthday, my dad took me out to dinner, just the two of us, and put a white gold promise ring on my finger.

It was simple and delicate, just a plain, thin band with a bible verse citation (Philippians. 1: 9-11) inscribed on the inside.

Women's Health • April 6 2016

There's a Drug That Prevents HIV—So Why Don't More Women Know About It?

After Zoey D.* gave birth to two perfect baby girls in June of 2015, her congratulatory friends and family couldn’t stop gushing about what a “miracle” they were—but most of them had no idea how truly miraculous the twins’ perfect health really was.

The babies’ father, Aiden*, is HIV positive (a fact that remains unknown to most of the couple's loved ones), but with medication, Zoey was able to remain virus-free and successfully conceive and deliver two perfectly healthy babies with Aiden.

Women's Health • August 19 2016

Meet the Badass Women of the Gay Softball World Series

Confession: I’ve never really been into team sports. But I’m VERY into gay pride celebrations, tacos, and badass female athletes.

So when Nissan, a major sponsor of the annual Gay Softball World Series, invited me to Austin, Texas, to write about the 40th anniversary of the games, I was stoked. 

LOGO News • December 9 2016

8 Absurd Things American Women Have To Do To Get An Abortion

The hits on reproductive rights keep coming: On Wednesday, the Ohio Legislature passed the strictest abortion law in the country. It bans abortions from the moment a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which usually occurs just six weeks into a pregnancy. (It’s not too late to ask Governor John Kasich veto it, though.)

Also this week, the Texas Department of State Health Services just updated the “fact” guide it insists women must before they can terminate a pregnancy. The new version of “A Woman’s Right to Know” links abortion and breast cancer, and makes other spurious claims that have been debunked by multiple studies.

Women's Health • October 7 2016

Why Are So Many Women Still Being Blamed for Their Sexual Assaults?

After Aspen Matis was sexually assaulted on her second night as a student at Colorado College in 2008, she asked her rapist to sleep over.

LOGO News • December 19 2016

This Contraceptive Delivery Service Is Now Giving Away Free Birth Control—In Donald Trump's Name

Following the election, doctors’ offices saw a surge of women scrambling to secure birth control as they faced an administration that could make access to contraception even more difficult than it already is.

But Nurx, a contraceptive home-delivery app that made headlines when it added PrEP to its offerings, is taking a bold stand against the Republican Party’s war on reproductive rights: It’s giving away free birth control in Donald Trump’s name.

TakePart • April 17 2016

Scientists Working to Stop HIV See Fresh Hope in Vaginal Ring Trials

In 2012, when researchers first announced plans to develop a vaginal ring that could prevent HIV infections, hopes ran high that the global HIV epidemic might have finally met its match—but the technology has encountered a number of bumps in the road on its way to reaching the women who need it most.

MTV News • March 5 2015

How Can We Stop Men From Murdering Women? One Woman Has A Genius Idea

Karen Ingala Smith is the CEO of Nia, a London-based nonprofit dedicated to “delivering cutting edge services to end violence against women and children.” She recently got a lot of media attention for initiating the creation of the Femicide Census, a system designed to track the numbers of women who are killed by men.

Women's Health • April 29 2016

If You’re the Only Woman Up for a Job, You're Sh*t Outta Luck

Businesses are finally realizing that racial and gender diversity actually makes them more profitable. But despite that, 95 percent of CEOs are still white men, as are roughly 85 percent of business executives, according to recent research by Catalyst.org. Now, new research reinforces suspicions that unconscious bias is to blame.

Women's Health • March 28 2016

Thanks to These Period Panties, You Can Now Bleed All Over Donald Trump's Face

Period panties are having a moment.

It’s a well-deserved moment, big enough to make us wonder how the hell it took so long to come up with a concept as simple as underwear that can actually absorb period blood. And now, thanks to some brilliant Etsy crafters, our periods are getting another upgrade: the ability to bleed all over the faces of politicians who are actively working to repress reproductive rights.

MTV News • March 19 2015

Revenge Porn Almost Ruined Her Life, But Now She's Saying, 'Welcome To Our World, Jerks!'

Did you know it’s perfectly legal in most of the U.S. for someone to post naked pictures of you online against your will? That exact thing happened to AnnMarie Chiarini several years ago. After the pictures were posted online and sent to both her boss and her son’s kindergarten teacher, she was scoffed at by the police. She felt so terrified and ashamed that she tried to end her own life. She survived

MTV News • September 22 2015

Girls In Africa Desperately Need This Menstrual Cup -- And If You Buy One, They'll Get One

When you buy a pair of Tom’s shoes, they send a pair to a kid in need; when you buy a pair of glasses from Warby Parker or Vision Spring, they do the same with glasses. It’s an awesome business model called “Buy One Give One” that’s been wildly successful. Now, one company based out of Denmark is taking that same business model and applying it to (drum-roll, please…) menstrual cups!

Women's Health • April 21 2016

Not All Oral Is Equal: Why Men Are Still So Terrified of Vaginas

Most of the young women Peggy Orenstein interviewed for her new book Girls & Sex believe giving oral sex to guys without ever receiving it in return is normal.

“I began asking the girls I interviewed how they’d feel if a guy kept asking them to get him a glass of water every time they hung out, but never offered to get them one,” says Orenstein. Once she phrased it like that, the girls realized how insulting it was for dudes to take oral without returning the favor.

Women's Health • February 26 2016

9 Places—Other Than the Oscars—Where It’s Really Good to Be a Straight, White Man

In anticipation of the 88th Academy Awards this Sunday, there’s been a whole lot of buzz about the extent to which the Oscars are tailored to straight, white men, including a call from Reverend Al Sharpton to boycott and protest the event, and some truly scathing tweets under the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite.

That’s all totally warranted, and these are important conversations to be having—but ultimately, Hollywood as an industry is just a microcosm of all industry, and the white, male privilege that’s so evident at the Oscars epitomizes patterns that can be observed everywhere in our culture.

MTV News • September 3 2015

Sex Ed Outside The U.S. Teaches Kids About Masturbation, Consent And Orgasms -- And It's Working

The U.S. has the highest rate of teen pregnancy among developed nations, with an average of 52.8 pregnancies and 33.8 births for every 1,000 15-to-19-year-olds. We also have the highest rate of STD infections in the industrialized world.

MTV News • November 4 2015

High School Principal Says Strict Dress Codes Protect The 'Precious Gift' Of Virginity

All the recent stories about brave, badass students clapping back about absurdly sexist, shame-inducing dress codes in their high schools have been making us feel like it’s a magical time to be alive. But a principal in Michigan recently responded to all of those positive feminist messages with an op-ed so sexist and sleazy, we’re now questioning whether we’ve actually made any progress at all.

MTV News • December 4 2015

An Artist Is Making Amazing Scarves Printed With Images From The Inside Of Her Vagina

Did you know that silk bows worn around the neck for purely decorative purposes — or, more commonly these days, fastened to the collars of blouses — are commonly referred to as “Pussy Bows?” Because they have a cool feminist history, and they’re super hot this fall, a feminist artist in New York has decided to give the quirky moniker a more literal meaning — by creating silk scarves printed with images taken from the inside of her own vagina.

Women's Health • April 7 2016

Meet the 24-Year-Old Who Could Become the Youngest Woman in Congress

Twenty-four-year-old Erin Schrode has been striving to make the world a better place ever since she was 11 years old, when she and her mother discovered that their hometown of Marin County, California, had the highest breast, prostate, and melanoma cancer rates in the world.

Women's Health • February 2 2016

There's Finally a Place Where Women Can Band Together to Overpower Online Bullies

If you’re a person with opinions—and especially if you’re a woman—you’ve probably experienced some form of harassment online. If you’re lucky enough to have avoided being a target, you’ve almost surely witnessed someone else being harassed online: Research has shown that while 40 percent of adult Internet users have experienced online harassment directly, 73 percent of us have witnessed online abuse (ranging from offensive name-calling, to public shaming, to violent physical threats, sexual harassment, and stalking) being directed toward someone else.

MTV News • July 6 2015

Here's Proof That Giving Teens Free Birth Control Works

Colorado just conducted a huge, real-life birth control experiment: In 2009 they started giving teenagers and young women free access to long-acting forms of birth control, like Intrauterine Devices (or IUDs) and implants. The results?

The New York Times reports that the birthrate for teenagers went down 40%, and the rate of abortions for teens went down 42%. That is a hugely significant drop.

Women's Health • April 20 2016

8 Signs That Nice Guy Is Actually a Jerk in Disguise

We’ve all encountered him: the self-proclaimed “nice” guy who suddenly reveals himself to be a needy narcissist, jealous jerk, or passive-aggressive, entitled player. Or, if you’re really unfortunate, some combination of all three.

So how do you tell if the dude you just started dating is genuinely good, or just a dick?

MTV News • August 6 2015

This 12-Year-Old Girl Has A Higher IQ Than Einstein

A “genius” score on the Mensa IQ test is a 140, and Einstein and Stephen Hawking both scored a 160. 12-year-old Nicole Barre from England recently scored a 162, putting her in the top one percent of the population.