There is No After
“Now, staring down the oft-invoked ‘return to normalcy,’ I don’t know how to metabolize such a towering sense of collective grief, and one that’s infused practically everything I’ve ever known.”
How America Invented the White Woman Who Just Loves Fall
“For the past decade, the basic white girl who loves fall has become so solidified in the cultural imagination that she may as well be the season’s Easter Bunny.”
How Berkeley High’s Whisper Network Started a Movement
“This country is coming off years of high-profile attention to the handling of sexual assault allegations on college campuses, thanks, in part, to student activists like Emma Sulkowicz and Obama-era awareness campaigns. Despite the focus of public attention, though, the problem exists at the elementary and high school level, too.”
The End of Miss America
If only the actual Miss America were as gorgeous and erudite as this essay about the decrepitude of a stagnant pageant in a changing world.
It’s Not a Clinic, It’s a Caste System
Surely, there is a happy medium between “delightful” concierge healthcare and no healthcare at all that we as a society are smart enough to figure out. (Also, no one ever had a delightful pap smear, no matter how tasty the infused water in the waiting room was.)
Inside the Spectacular Implosion at the Romance Writers of America
As the book publishing industry changed, the roles that the Romance Writers of America played becama less clear, and the organization’s troubled relationship with inclusion and intersectionality became increasingly problematic.
Stories About My Brother
“I was finally becoming the woman I had always wanted to be, but was heartbroken that my brother, the person I loved more than anyone else in the world, seemingly hated that woman… When he died, I believed that I didn’t know the facts of his life well enough to write his obituary. Worse, I feared that he wouldn’t have wanted me to write it. How do you write about someone you loved intensely, but didn’t really like?”
‘Soulful Vanilla Child’: When Pink Was Black
As a kid, the author mistook the pop/R&B artist Pink for a light-skinned black woman. In this reported essay, she takes a look at the cultural forces that encouraged that misconception.
The Last Popeyes Chicken Sandwich in America
Megan Reynolds tries the much ballyhooed (and at least temporarily unavailable) Popeye’s chicken sandwich and considers the minimum-wage workers exploited in responding to the frenzy for it, along with other problematic aspects of its popularity among bougie foodies.
At UNTUCKit, Clothes Make the Man, and the Man Needs Help
Do men just want a uniform, someone to dress them, or both?
