Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
In hindsight, our son was gearing up to wear a dress to school for quite some time. For months, he wore dresses—or his purple-and-green mermaid costume—on weekends and after school. Then he began wearing them to sleep in lieu of pajamas, changing out of them after breakfast. Finally, one morning, I brought him his clean…
(Trigger warning: If abuse, sexual assault, or anorexia makes you uncomfortable, you might want to avoid this one.) Over the years, I’ve attempted to write this, quite literally, 17 times. I’ve spoken to friends, therapists, lawyers, publicists. The drafts have ranged from cathartic, angry letters to litigious, hardened accounts of inexcusable treatment. Until I got…
Back in the summer of 2016, when the female “Ghostbusters” remake hit theaters, aggrieved fans of the original regarded the new film as a politically motivated assassination. Replacing their childhood comedy idols with women was a kind of narrative murder, committed by a cabal of Hollywood moguls and humorless feminists. This summer’s own splashy female…
Last November, Vox published a story by politics editor Laura McGann about New York Times politics reporter Glenn Thrush and what she called his “history of bad judgment” around young women journalists. The story detailed four women’s assertions that Thrush came onto or harassed them, usually in situations involving alcohol. Three allegedly took place during…
It’s almost a like competition. Time after time, manga and anime creators have one-upped each other, escalating the arms race that will one day destroy us all. The weapons here aren’t of the ballistic variety — they’re girls. Or rather, things that are not girls that also happen to look just like girls. “Moe anthropomorphism”…
In the past few days, Harebrained Schemes designer Tyler Carpenter has been accused of sexual abuse and harassment by at least six women on social media. The allegations range from inappropriate groping to repeated expressions of romantic and sexual interest after repeatedly being told to stop. Carpenter, who recently worked as a systems and missions…
Photo: Daniel Zuchnik/Getty Kate Spade’s death by suicide at 55 is as shocking as any sudden celebrity death—the designer, mother, and fashion industry innovator is gone abruptly, unexpectedly, and entirely too soon. But the context and circumstances underscore its tragedy: For over two decades, the fashion designer’s commercial and personal brand cast a sunny, optimistic…
Ms. Kelly is a Ph.D. student researching the impact of digital cultures on anti-feminism and the far right. CreditIllustration by Na Kim; photographs by Bluexhand/iStock, via Getty Images and Creative Commons In a podcast interview posted last spring, Nicole Jorgenson, a singer and former schoolteacher in North Dakota, explains to her host that she has…
After making an ass of himself in an interview with the New York Times during which he defended costar Jeffrey Tambor’s history of verbal abuse toward Jessica Walter (who tearfully recounted Tambor’s behavior), Jason Bateman has released a multi-part (though strangely un-threaded) apology. A Big Fuck Off to the Men of Arrested Development There…
Celebrations at Dublin Castle after the abortion referendum results were announced on Saturday.CreditJeff J Mitchell/Getty Images DUBLIN — Ireland voted decisively to repeal one of the world’s more restrictive abortion bans, the prime minister said Saturday, sweeping aside generations of conservative patriarchy and dealing the latest in a series of stinging rebukes to the Roman…