Where Things Stand
After the VIDA counts in 2010 and 2011, as well as Jennifer Weiner’s count she released on her blog in January 2012, I wanted to see where things stood for…
Roxane Gay
55 posts
Roxane Gay served as Essays Editor in the early days of The Rumpus, where she contributed many essays and interviews for the magazine. Some of her original pieces, first published here, found a home in her widely acclaimed New York Times bestseller essay collection Bad Feminist.
Peculiar Benefits
What I remind myself, regularly, is this: the acknowledgment of my privilege is not a denial of the ways I have been and am marginalized, the ways I have suffered.
Today’s Required Reading
At Guernica, Randa Jarrar writes about this one time when she tried to visit her sister in Palestine and she was deported by Israel. I was so afraid of facing…
The Rumpus Interview with Julianna Baggott
Julianna Baggott’s Pure is about a post-apocalyptic world where the responsibility for changing and saving civilization lies with children.
The Trouble With Prince Charming or He Who Trespassed Against Us
I enjoy fairy tales because I need to believe, despite my cynicism, that there is a happy ending for everyone, for me.
Girls Girls Girls
A television show about my twenties would follow the life of a girl who is lost, literally and figuratively. There wouldn’t be a laugh track.
What We Hunger For
I am always interested in the representations of strength in women, where that strength comes from, how it is called upon when it is needed most, and what it costs for a woman to be strong.
Beyond the Measure of Men
Here we are again. In the New York Times Book Review, Meg Wolitzer takes up the matter of “women’s fiction,” in her essay, “The Second Shelf.” She does a fine job…
A Place Where We Are Everything
Oftentimes when having difficult conversations about complex topics, certain kinds of people (the small-minded, feeble-minded, profoundly ignorant, etc.) will try to derail the conversation.
The Alienable Rights of Women
We are having a national debate about abortion, birth control, and reproductive freedom, and men are directing that debate.
A Round Up of Kony 2012 Links
Yesterday I clicked on a link from my Twitter feed that took me to a YouTube video about a man named Jason Russell and his son and then I realized…
The 2011 VIDA Count
VIDA has once again released their count, where they look at prominent magazines and identify the gender breakdown of writers, reviewers, and books reviewed. Once again, the numbers are revealing.