Tarnished, Shiny Exteriors: Kate Braverman’s A Good Day for Seppuku
With A Good Day for Seppuku, Braverman has written a collection of intense images and exacting language
...more
Posts Tagged: women
Endless Preparation: Apples and Women’s Work
It makes sense to me that Johnny Appleseed, a man, would travel God’s earth spreading his profligate seed. And then women are doomed to their lives trying to make that seed into something useful.
...more
Between Autonomy and Powerlessness: Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
Women’s bodies signify so much, both to ourselves and others, that inhabiting them and having ownership over them often feel like two different states of being.
...more
What to Read When You Don’t Want Summer to End
A list of books that take place in the summer, remind us of summer, and/or just make for great beach reads.
...more
Concubines and Expat Husbands: Catching Up with Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan
Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan discusses her new novel, Sarong Party Girls, concubine culture, and the freedom of writing fiction after a career in journalism.
...more
Caroline Chege Is the Politician the World Needs
Against all odds, Caroline Chege is fighting for female representation in Kenya.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Lauren Elkin
Writer and academic Lauren Elkin discusses her latest book Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London, the freedoms and constraints of urban space for women, and the power of first person.
...moreThis Week In Trumplandia
Welcome to This Week in Trumplandia. Check in with us every Thursday for a weekly roundup of the most pertinent content on our country, which is currently spiraling down a crappy toilet drain. You owe it to yourself, your communities, and your humanity to contribute whatever you can, even if it is just awareness of […]
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Naomi Jackson
Naomi Jackson discusses her debut novel, The Star Side of Bird Hill, how she approached writing about mental illness and its affects on a family, and choosing to to tell a story from multiple perspectives.
...more
Who Run the World?
Look through these images, and feel proud. Feel inspired. Know that yes, the battle is uphill and will be hard-won, but it will be won.
...more
R.I.P.: Inauguration Day
Instead of mourning in solitude, let us sob together. Let us soak communally in our fear. Let us hyperventilate, our breasts heaving in unison.
...moreThis Week in Short Fiction
If you recall your Greek mythology, you’ll remember Cassandra, princess of Troy, priestess of Apollo, seer of prophecies, and patron saint of women everywhere screaming themselves blue but never being heard. Cassandra’s prophecies unfailingly proved to be true, but still she was seen as insane by her family and the Trojan people and, in some […]
...moreDeplorable Men Need Love Too
She went on to become a Siberian housewife. He went on to call for the executions of ten million Russians. But she thought back on their evenings drinking and dancing. He sang songs to her in his sweet, high voice. Behind every dictator is a woman who sees something redeemable in him. For n+1, Shawn Wen […]
...more
Dedicate Your No-Trump Vote: Michelle Hoover
You see, when a man believes he has the power to grant a woman personhood by admiring her looks or her body’s use to him… he also believes he has the power to take it away. Trump believes he has this power.
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Abigail Ulman
Abigail Ulman talks about her debut collection Hot Little Hands, the limitations of the cultural narrative, her paralyzing pre-publication fears, and why she loves adolescent narrators.
...moreTranslating the War in Syria
At Lit Hub, Lina Mounzer discusses the Syrian women bearing witness to the war through writing, her own complicated relationship with the English language, and translation as a symbolic act: [War] reshapes your vocabulary. It becomes part of your language. A barrel will no longer ever be a barrel again; shrapnel will always explode from […]
...moreThe Story of A New Name
Earlier this week, Aaron Brady wrote presciently in his column for The New Inquiry about the ethical implications of revealing Elena Ferrante’s identity. He pointed out that in searching for her “real” identity, reporters were forgetting that one of the greatest things about Elena Ferrante is her fictions, and that at the heart of it, they are still […]
...moreOn Why Women Are Less Likely to Be Art Monsters
At Catapult, Miranda Popkey explores gender in society and in literature, recalling her own journey as an emerging writer. Her job and financial status provided her little time to pursue her true passion, being an ‘art monster.’ She finds that marrying her husband ultimately put her closer to her dreams. But as a new wife, Popkey begins […]
...more
Fresh Comics #9: Bird in a Cage
Countering our culture’s disregard for all things elderly, comics have become a medium of choice for celebrating the lives of our oldest and wisest generation. Bird in a Cage (Conundrum Press, 2016) joins a growing roster of graphic novels about the elderly that explore how much they are loved, how rich and complicated their lives are, and […]
...moreWomen Shouldn’t Stop Saying ‘Sorry’
At The Establishment, Amelia Shroyer pushes back against the idea that women must self-police their language in order to sound more ‘professional’ (read: like men): Society has always valued the words of men more than those of women, to the point that men have been credited for discoveries or milestones actually reached by women, and […]
...moreBad Press
Though Chloe Caldwell’s books, including her 2015 novella Women, have been praised by the likes of Lena Dunham and Cheryl Strayed, there are some critics who were not quite so enthralled. How did Caldwell handle the bad press? And how bad was it? “I am so fucking bored of reading essays about being young and confused, […]
...more12 Lol-Worthy Gifs That Will Recuperate Feminist Praxis
Bitch is where many of today’s feminist internet denizens (yours truly included) got our start reading and writing about culture with a critical eye. In many ways, Zeisler’s book is a call to arms, asking us to return to a rigorous, systemic analysis. At Flavorwire, Sarah Seltzer interviews Bitch founder Andi Zeisler on her new […]
...more
Anna March’s Reading Mixtape #20: Greats
Great strides, great artists, great desires, great complexity—this week’s books are all about these kinds of greats. They also all showcase exceptional writing and take us far and wide—from elective politics to abstract art, from Coney Island to California—to explore great ideas. How does the world change politically? How is a woman artist’s life entwined […]
...moreWhite Women Dominate Publishing?
Man Booker prize-winner Marlon James was right: the people who work in publishing are overwhelmingly white and female. New data shows that publishing executives, editors, and the staff behind books are predominantly white women: At the executive level, publishing is 86 percent white, 59 percent female, 89 percent “straight/heterosexual,” and 96 percent normatively-abled. At the editorial […]
...more
The Saturday Rumpus Essay: In Defense of Not Cooking
Should there be a Bechdel test for women in the kitchen?
...moreGawker’s Problem with Women
Gawker has been failing its female employees. Gawker may pay its writers, but as Evans found out after staffers voted to unionize, Gawker doesn’t pay its writers equally: The union effort prompted my discovery of an egregious pay discrepancy, which I brought up with male writers and editors to their either mild interest or argumentative […]
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Kate Bolick
Kate Bolick talks about her new book, Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own, writing and the nuclear family, and whether women are finally people yet.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Karolina Waclawiak
Karolina Waclawiak discusses her latest book, The Invaders, the dark side of human nature, and what it really means to be a “beach read”.
...more
Angry Women in History
Stassa Edwards writes a comprehensive history of feminine vitrol: While the anger of second-wave feminists was meant to be liberating, it wasn’t without its own limitations. Solanas and Rosler, Kate Millet and Judy Chicago all have one thing in common: They were white women. Even while trying to liberate their own anger, second-wave feminists bristled […]
...more