A deep look inside the byzantine subculture of high-school debate — and the misogyny and toxic behavior that lurked therein — from a onetime participant. Heart-stopping and eye-opening. Boys who were strong debaters were said to possess Good Debater Syndrome, meaning that their skill made them seem more attractive to their female peers. For girls, […]
misogyny
Posted inNonfiction
What Didn’t Kill Her
Bernice L. McFadden ruminates on all the things her mother has endured only to find herself spending her golden years in the midst of a deadly plague and state-sanctioned racism.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Replaying My Shame
In the past 13 years, Emily Gould has become an accomplished author and feminist book publisher. As she prepares for the launch of her latest novel, Perfect Tunes, she worries that to many people, she will only ever be what she was for less than a year, in 2007: an editor at now defunct media […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Between Russell Simmons and The World and Oprah
Russell Simmons moved to Bali to avoid the legal fallout from a litany of #metoo accusations, but that didn’t stop him from spending time, recently, in New York City. Veteran journalist Kevin Powell conducted many interviews with him there, attempting to understand his one-time idol’s perspective. In the wake of Oprah Winfrey’s withdrawal from producing […]
Posted inFeature
Whatever Happened to ______ ?
Envy over her success led her husband, also a writer, to become violent. She fights every day for her safety — and to avoid being relegated to obscurity like so many writers who are mothers.
Posted inBusiness, Essays & Criticism, Feature, Featured, Nonfiction, Story
Leaning In with Alex P. Keaton
Born with serious CEO aspirations, Nicole Cyrus found her role model in a white kid from an ’80s sitcom.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Featured, Highlight, Nonfiction, Quotes, Unapologetic Women
Woman Writes Story Challenging Gender Dynamics; Is Thwarted by…Long-Standing Gender Dynamics
How can we combat sexism in publishing if we’re so worried about damaging the reputations of offending men?
Posted inEditor's Pick
Party Girl
An essay in which Longreads contributor Monica Drake recounts learning that a young, white, male intern at a literary magazine she’d submitted to had publicly humiliated her by taking her story to a party to read aloud and mock a sex scene she had included — a scene in which gender dynamics are upended.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Creator of the Shitty Media Men List Isn’t Done
Nona Willis Aronowitz profiles Moira Donegan, an emerging feminist author who once worried she’d be defined — and ruined — by the google spreadsheet she created as a safe space for women in media to anonymously share their experiences of sexual harassment and discrimination.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Featured, Nonfiction, Story
Brigid, Magdalene, My Mother, and Me
Carmel Mc Mahon contemplates the legacy of trauma passed down through generations of Irish women.