Diary

Difficult Women
Say a woman is “difficult,” and chances are that she will not get the job, the promotion, or the invitation to join the club. The adjective guarantees pariahdom.

The Shame of Self-Promotion
On the cover of this week’s issue of The Economist, an intriguing headline reads: “Why women should boast more.” I took the hook. I don’t read The Economist

Memoirs by Men, or why bother?
Of course, not. What editor worth his salt would choose to group reviews of memoirs written by men under that title? No one. But Memoirs by Women, now

Back to School
I’m not going back to school in the way that “back to school” meant as a child (new shoes, new teachers), or as an adult who, after experimenting

Three Shades of Black
Summer Black, of course. No New Yorker needs persuading about wearing black in the summer―is there any other color?―but apparently London women need help, or at least encouragement

Twitter and Trolls
The FEMEN movement has warned London and Britain that an offensive on the city is in the works. Inna Shevchenko whose face inspired a new image for Marianne,

“New-Wave Feminists,” starring Jane Austen
I’ve long been enamored of new-wave movies since they changed my life, and so it was a treat to see feminists referred to as “new wavers” in a

DOES She Forgive Him? Or How CAN She Forgive Him?
There I was all set to report on the doings around the Royal Baby, when an item about Anthony Weiner popped up as the head column in the

Welcome. Some musings on my current preoccupations with the worlds of illness and the worlds of books: the vicissitudes of living with cancer and the need, for now, to launch (a k a promote) my new memoir, My Brilliant Friends: Our Lives in Feminism. Naturally, I inhabit both spaces, which makes for a strangely bifurcated, though far from boring, existence. Click to view both Feminist Friendship Archive and My Multifocal Life projects.