Woman Writes Story Challenging Gender Dynamics; Is Thwarted by…Long-Standing Gender Dynamics By Sari Botton Highlight How can we combat sexism in publishing if we’re so worried about damaging the reputations of offending men?
I’m 72. So What? By Catherine Texier Feature Catherine Texier pushes back against society’s dated ideas about older women, claiming her place among those who are determined to remain vibrant and relevant in the last decades of their lives.
The Reality of Being Sick and Alone By Carolyn Wells Highlight Diagnosed with breast cancer, Anne Boyer discusses the treatment that is poisoning her body.
Queens of Infamy: Njinga By Anne Thériault Feature The Portuguese colonizers of West Central Africa learned it the hard way: you mess with the Queen of Ndongo and Matamba at your own peril.
Grow Up By Soraya Roberts Feature Being an adult at the end of the world means listening to children tell the truths grown-ups refuse to actually hear.
Grandiose and Claustrophobic: ‘Prozac Nation’ Turns 25 By Anne Thériault Feature Elizabeth Wurtzel’s bestseller is deeply rooted in a specific, Gen-X cultural moment. Can it still speak to us in 2019?
Communiqué from an Exurban Satellite Clinic of a Cancer Pavilion Named after a Financier By Longreads Feature Anne Boyer encounters a familiar system — that grand and easy-to-mistake-for-everything system — at the cancer pavilion.
Rock Me Gently By Soraya Roberts Feature The classic rock star wanted to stick it to The Man, and did so bender by selfish bender. The new rock star knows you can’t do it alone.
Is it Possible to be Child-Free and Content? By Carolyn Wells Highlight While motherhood is the natural path for many women – others simply don’t want to take it on.
Looking for Carolina Maria de Jesus By Tari Ngangura Feature For a brief period in the 1960s, the Afro-Brazilian author of the memoir “Child of the Dark” was one of the most well-known writers in the world.
Mountains, Transcending By Ailsa Ross Feature “Ever since I was five years old,” wrote opera singer–turned–Buddhist lama Alexandra David-Néel, “I craved to go beyond the garden gate, to follow the road that passed it by, and to set out for the Unknown.”
The Occupation of a Woman Writer By Kiley Bense Feature Our inherited biases about who should write what live deeper than most of us realize or want to acknowledge.
On Silence (or, Speak Again) By Elissa Bassist Feature Elissa Bassist breaks her silence about everything she’s not supposed to talk about and comes out alive.
This (Wo)Man’s Work By Soraya Roberts Feature When men devalue the labor of women like Andrea Arnold and overvalue the work of even problematic men, it’s a triple whammy that diminishes the individual woman, women in general, and the overall quality of culture.
A Minor Figure By Longreads Feature While searching for photographs that depict black young women and girls living free in the second and third generations born after slavery, Saidiya Hartman finds a disturbing image.
The Cost of Reading By Ayşegül Savaş Feature Ayşegül Savaş contemplates the way women’s and men’s time is valued and the uneven burden taken by women writers in literary citizenship.
Wimbledon: Where Women Wait By Ben Rothenberg Feature Women still aren’t treated equally at Wimbledon.
Live Through This: Courtney Love at 55 By lisawhill Feature Lisa Whittington-Hill on why Courtney Love deserves to be the girl with the most cake.
The No. 1 Ladies’ Defrauding Agency By Rose Eveleth Feature What a 19th-century scammer can teach us about women, lying, and economic boom-and-bust cycles
If I Made $4 a Word, This Article Would Be Worth $10,000 By Soraya Roberts Feature Journalism’s one percent would rather make up a fake feud than address the reality of the industry’s pay disparity, which benefits them and no one else.
These Rooms Alone By Jill Talbot and Max Feature Two women, 20 years apart, on the choice they both made.
School for Girls By Jasmin Aviva Sandelson Feature Years after recovering from anorexia, Jasmin Sandelson writes a letter to the high school friend she idolized, and explores how hunger, love, and envy shaped — and ended — their relationship.
Sex Work and Workers: A Reading List to Get You Beyond Law & Order SVU and Pretty Woman By Sara Benincasa Reading List The best way to learn what being a sex worker is like is to listen to sex workers.
‘Brokenness and Holiness Really Go Together’: Darcey Steinke on Menopause By Jane Ratcliffe Feature Darcey Steinke says that most menopause memoirs “end with this come-to-Jesus moment of, ‘Then I accepted hormones.’ I’m not against it, but … I wanted to hear what it’s like for other women.”
At Transformation By Jane Rideau Demuth Feature On the cusp of a life-changing procedure, Jane Rideau Demuth makes peace with the paths that brought her here, and the obstacles she had to wrestle with along the way.
The Psychiatrist in My Writing Class and His ‘Gift’ of Hate By Rani Neutill Feature Rani Neutill recalls a literary workshop in which a white man critiqued her ability to write in “proper” English.
There Is No Other Way To Say This By Melissa Batchelor Warnke Feature “Tell them on the outside,” Carolyn Forché’s Salvadoran mentor instructed her. Her memoir is her latest attempt. Its elliptical lyricism, like that of her poetry, runs circles around censorship.
Game of Crones By Laura Lippman Feature It wasn’t entirely Laura Lippman’s idea to become a mother in her 50s. But when it happened, she leaned in hard.
The Women Characters Rarely End Up Free: Remembering Rachel Ingalls By Ruby Brunton Feature The recently re-appreciated novelist Rachel Ingalls passed away last month. She was among a cohort of twentieth-century women writers who were ‘famous for not being famous.’
A Woman’s Work: The Inside Story By Carolita Johnson Feature Carolita Johnson examines some of the inner workings of a woman’s body from puberty to menopause.
