Elle

On the 20th anniversary of the first episode of Sex and the City, Glynnis MacNicol rewatches the series and assesses the ways in which it remains relevant, and the ways in which the series could never get made in today’s more socially conscious climate.

A DREAMer discusses her daily beauty and fashion routine: the clothes she wears to the airport in case she gets screened, the nail polish she wears with a short manicure in case she’s fingerprinted, the waterproof mascara she uses in case she cries.

It’s hard to shed your religious upbringing, especially when your parents’ religion involves demonic possession.

To Sudanese Muslim immigrants leaving war-torn northern Africa for opportunity in America, one old house in Fort Wayne, Indiana was a place of hope. For Tanisha C. Ford, it was the house where her grandfather shot her grandmother and himself sixty years earlier. Ford looks at the life and death of her family home to find parallels between these two communities of color, their aspirations and obstacles.

The newest film of Academy Award winning director Kathryn Bigelow, Detroit, depicts the beginning of the city’s 1967 uprisings. As he examines the film, Detroit-born writer and professor Michael Eric Dyson asks important questions about who can tell what stories and how the lives of black residents in Detroit have changed over the last 50 years.

Marisa Meltzer profiles Roxane Gay as the prolific author prepares to go on tour to support Hunger, a book she calls “by far the hardest book I’ve ever had to write.” In it, Gay reflects on what it’s like to live in a world that does not accommodate her body and how she “turned to food for numbness and protection” after being gang raped as a child.

As the first season of the television adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale wraps up, author Emily Gould profiles Elisabeth Moss, the show’s star and executive producer. Gould manages to draw Moss out out a bit on topics the actress is famous for being tight-lipped about, including the book and show’s feminist messages, and how her upbringing in the Church of Scientology might square with Margaret Atwood’s story of religious oppression.

Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah profiles multi-platinum, Grammy-award winning recording artist and producer Missy Elliot for Elle, placing the innovative performer squarely at the center of a tradition of creators who have changed how we listen to music.

A profile of Rebecca Solnit, prolific feminist author and climate change activist. Writer Keziah Weir takes a look at how ground-breaking and crystalizing Solnit’s writing about patriarchy has been, and appreciates the influence it’s had on her and many other women.

Feeling depressed post-election and run down by the rigors of parenthood, Ada Calhoun and her husband try to rekindle their spark at the kind of “romantic” Poconos resort she saw advertised on television as a kid–champagne-glass-shaped jacuzzi and all.