Ian Williams on the death of Dafney Unger
David Roth on the return of crowds to sporting events
Digital Antiquarian on 1995's interactive fiction
Jessa Crispin on surveillance software in white collar jobs
Benj Edwards on shareware software in the old days
Joseph Anthony Montecillo on the return of Bryan Danielson
In Current Affairs, Mindy Isser on rich women's feminism...
Feminism is often defined by the idea of “choice.” I would like to choose to wake up every day in a society that values me and all other women workers—to have a guaranteed union job, fair wages, social housing, healthcare, child care if I am able to become a mother. Instead, I am told I must choose between scrambling for access to those things, or dying. I could call this for what it is: anti-woman behavior—or sexism. And any other woman could tell me that actually I am the one being sexist for calling these things sexist: it’s my privilege talking; other women would kill to be in my shoes. I know this to be true and I also know that I am allowed to be angry about the ways I and other women suffer. And I also know that conditions for me and for all the women I love can become far worse than they are right now. My desire for a basic social safety net is, in a way, selfish: I want to have a good life. I believe that I deserve that. But I also want the same for everyone else—because I know that ultimately, we are all connected. It’s the same reason that higher union density means higher wages and better benefits even for non-union workers. A rising tide lifts all boats—and a perfect storm of a pandemic and economic recession could sink them. This is the basis of solidarity: if you fall, I could fall too. I am with every single working woman because I am a working woman too, and because I can’t have a good life without them also having a good life. I may suffer less than they do now, but because they are suffering, I am with them. And because they are suffering, I could lose everything and suffer more, too.
In Boston Review, Jessa Crispin on the "grooming" debate...
The language introduced in the conversations around #MeToo and other mainstream feminist campaigns revealed the power imbalances and types of coercion that might exist within these heterosexual age-gap couplings. But while this language helped to illuminate how men in positions of authority can use their power to coerce or circumvent consent, it also implied that a small segment of the movement believes that men inherently hold authority or power. Implying that all men possess inherent power also implies that they must possess power over something or someone else. The harm in this is that it necessarily insinuates that all women have a power deficit, if not total powerlessness. Through this lens, every heterosexual coupling is subject to scrutiny, lest a man get away with abusing his power over a defenseless young woman. Of course the female subject, awash in feelings and hormones and femininity, is insufficient as the primary judge of whether her relationship is problematic.
The way things are going, they will not be going far, so it’s time to bring back the weekly reader…
Writing in Unherd, Aris Roussinos argues that American is a failed state:
Trump is a morbid symptom of this chaos, rather than its cause. The forthcoming election, which pits two gerontocrats of dubious mental acuity against each other, resembles the late Soviet era, before the regime collapsed under its own absurdities. America indeed represents a strange inversion of the Soviet collapse: the economy dwarfs that of any other nation, save China; its empire is still intact, and its military spans the globe more powerfully than any single challenger.
Farrah Hasnain remembers the late, great, Hana Kimura:
And not just love but admiration. She definitely earned my admiration both as a young woman who invested herself in her friendships with every emotion and who, just by existing, represented something that we don’t always get to see on TV: an authentic biracial woman who wasn’t there for a laugh or set dressing. I think her legacy will continue to be built on by way of Tokyo Cyber Squad’s message of solidarity and acceptance: “Everyone is different, everyone is good.”
Arundhati Roy writes in Financial Times about what comes next after the global pandemic:
Mariame Kaba on abolishing the police for the New York Times.
Jessa Crispin on the liberal cheapening of “Believe Women.”
The language of abuse and trauma is creeping into political rhetoric, as if every interaction between a man and a woman these days can be understood as a potential violation. Virginia Heffernan wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “Sanders had gaslighted Warren over whether he told her a female candidate couldn’t win the 2020 election.” Gaslighting is a term for one person lying to their romantic partner so effectively and consistently that they start to question their version of reality. Had Heffernan simply said Sanders lied, it would not have given the accusation the melodramatic pull of centuries of stories of women being tormented and abused by the men in their lives. Lying is something politicians do. Gaslighting is something misogynistic monsters do.
Someone we have not mentioned on this blog in a long time: Benj Edwards on the first female video game designer.
Freddy Alva on the flyer art of Born Against.
Emily Van Duyne on Sylvia Plath.
Jessa Crispin on the vapid nature of modern feminism.
Luke Savage on how liberals fell in love with The West Wing.
Jessa Crispin on our collective memory loss.
Angela Nagle on the absolutely awful television adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale.
Anthony Pappalardo on the youth crew aesthetic.
Amber Al’Lee Frost on leftist protests.