2,229 articles
Domestic worker
Domestic workers, also known as domestic staff, are people employed by households globally. The International Labour Organization defined the category in 2011, noting 52.6 million workers in 2010.
Domicide
Domicide is the deliberate destruction of home, a term coined by geographers J. Douglas Porteous and Sandra E. Smith in 2001, spanning extreme wartime destruction and everyday displacement, with recent campaigns to codify it as an international crime.
Dominatrix
Dominatrix (plural dominatrices, also pro-domme): a woman taking the dominant role in BDSM, often paid; works in dungeons, uses SSC/RACK consent frameworks, faces layered sex-work and kink stigma, and mostly does not have sex with clients.
Dona Celeste
Dona Celeste (Celeste Arantes do Nascimento, 1922–2024), Brazilian mother of footballer Pelé and wife of Dondinho; born in Três Corações, honored as Brazilian Mother of the Year 1966, died aged 101 in Santos.
Donald Trump and religion
Donald Trump and religion: his Presbyterian upbringing under Norman Vincent Peale, 2020 shift to nondenominational Christianity, the white evangelical voting bloc, the White House Faith Office, and public doubts about his personal religiosity.
Donation
Donation: a voluntary, gratuitous transfer of property (donatio) from donor to donee with no consideration; covers charitable money gifts, bequests, and mutual aid, with global participation near six in ten people in 2025.
Donna Haraway
Donna Haraway (born 1944, Denver) is an American feminist theorist and biologist, UC Santa Cruz History of Consciousness professor emerita, author of A Cyborg Manifesto (1985) and Situated Knowledges (1988), 2025 Erasmus Prize and Venice Golden Lion recipient.
Donna Rice Hughes
Donna Rice Hughes, American Internet safety advocate, president and CEO of Enough Is Enough; formerly the woman at the center of the 1987 Gary Hart presidential campaign scandal.
Doomer
Doomer is a 2018 4chan Wojak meme character, a depressed young man in a black beanie and hoodie with a nihilistic outlook, contrasted with Bloomer, tied to doomer wave music and older peak-oil usage.
Dora Marie Sigar
Dora Marie Sigar, also known as Dora Soemitro, was an Indonesian nurse from Manado, wife of economist Sumitro Djojohadikusumo and mother of President Prabowo Subianto.
Double penetration
Double penetration (DP) is simultaneous penetration of one person in two orifices, usually vaginal and anal. Appears in 17-22% of some pornography samples; requires a new condom per act, ample water- or silicone-based lube, and never two condoms at once.
Douglas Gowan
Douglas Gowan (c. 1942–2018) was a British NFU consultant and whistleblower who traced deformed livestock near Brofiscin and Maendy quarries in south Wales to Monsanto's PCB dumping, survived a 1970s corporate smear campaign, and gave a final testimony recorded by Michael Sheen.
Down-low (sexual slang)
Down-low (DL) is 1990s African American slang for secrecy, later meaning men who present as heterosexual while secretly having sex with men; research finds no link to elevated HIV risk.
Dowry
Dowry: wealth transfer from a bride's family to the groom or his family at marriage, the reverse of bride price. Rare cross-culturally (3% of Ethnographic Atlas sample), concentrated in South Asia where over 80% of marriages in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan involve it; widely decried for links to violence against women.
Drag Queen Story Hour
Drag Queen Story Hour, now Drag Story Hour, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded by Michelle Tea in San Francisco in 2015 in which drag performers read picture books to children at libraries and schools, known for children's literacy programming and the surrounding protests and legislation.
Dravidar Kazhagam (திராவிடர் கழகம்)
Dravidar Kazhagam (திராவிடர் கழகம், DK) is a Tamil Nadu social organization founded by Periyar E. V. Ramasamy in 1944 from the Justice Party and Self-Respect Movement; a non-electoral rationalist, anti-caste pressure group and parent of the DMK and AIADMK.
Dress code
Dress code: rules on clothing and appearance in schools and workplaces, from Tudor sumptuary laws and the 1222 cappa clausa to US Tinker ruling, EEOC religious accommodation, and French uniform trial results.
Duchess of Edinburgh
Duchess of Edinburgh, British royal title for the wife of the Duke of Edinburgh, created 1726 and held 2023 by Sophie, wife of Prince Edward, after Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.
Dude
Dude, or Dood, is an informal English term of address meaning roughly "guy," first recorded in 1883 as New York City slang for a fashionably dressed man.
Duplessis Orphans
Duplessis Orphans (les Orphelins de Duplessis): thousands of Quebec children, 1930s-1960s, falsely certified mentally deficient and placed in church-run psychiatric institutions for federal subsidies; documented abuse, 1962 report, 1990s lawsuits, compensation 1999-2006.
Durrell family
The Durrell family, an Anglo-Indian British family of writers Lawrence and Gerald Durrell, parents Lawrence Samuel and Louisa, siblings Leslie and Margo, known for the Corfu years 1935-1939 and My Family and Other Animals.
Dyad (sociology)
Dyad (sociology): the smallest social group, two people, from Georg Simmel's formal sociology (Zweierverbindung, Soziologie 1908). No majority possible, destroyed by one member's withdrawal; contrasted with the triad.
Dyke (slang)
Dyke is slang for a lesbian, especially one perceived as masculine; originally a slur (bulldyker attested 1906, dyke 1931), reclaimed since the 1970s as a proud self-designation and in Dyke March events.
Dysfunctional family
A dysfunctional family, also called family dysfunction, is a family whose impaired relationships or communication keep members from achieving intimacy, often handing dysfunction down through generations.
Earring Magic Ken
Earring Magic Ken is a 1993 Mattel Ken doll with a lavender mesh top, pleather vest, hoop earring, and chrome-ring necklace. Dan Savage's 'Ken Comes Out' column made it a gay icon; discontinued after six months, reportedly Mattel's best-selling Ken.
Earth Day
Earth Day, annual environmental observance on April 22 founded by Senator Gaylord Nelson and Denis Hayes after the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill; first held 1970 with 20 million US participants, global since 1990, UN-recognized as International Mother Earth Day.
Earth Liberation Front
Earth Liberation Front (ELF), radical environmental network founded 1992 in Brighton, England by former Earth First! members; decentralized leaderless cells using arson and sabotage; FBI's top domestic terror threat; no fatalities.
East Timor solidarity movement
The East Timor solidarity movement was an international network of activists, churches, parliamentarians, and NGOs that campaigned from 1975 to 1999 for East Timor's self-determination after Indonesia's invasion.
Ecofeminism
Ecofeminism, coined by Françoise d'Eaubonne in 1974, is an ideology and movement linking domination of women and degradation of nature through patriarchy and capitalism, with cultural and social strands, key texts by Merchant and Shiva, and ongoing climate justice relevance.
Ed Roberts (activist)
Ed Roberts (1939–1995), American disability rights activist and father of the Independent Living movement; first severely disabled UC Berkeley student, founder of the Center for Independent Living, and California Rehabilitation director.