Hoo boy am I having a lot of thoughts lately about how maybe we should take a break from telling women to do less, and spend that time and energy telling men to do more. This is just one of my many ideas for making the world a better place; please vote for me for president. In the meantime, here are some links!
Frankly, I think a great parenting move would be for parents of kids of all genders to focus on being attentive to the needs of others. But oh my God, yes, men do not clean up spills or feel responsibility for cleaning up spills.
How to build a kinder online community — or, how polite criticisms en masse can still feel like hostility.
“Feminist researchers have also found that many women don’t feel that they deserve long stretches of time to themselves, the way men do. They feel they have to earn it. And the only way to do that is to get to the end of a To Do list that never ends.”
J. Ryan Stradal talks about the skills shared in common by novelists and reality TV producers.
Soraya Roberts goes deep on the public intellectual and their value to the Discourse.
“Netflix has made heartwarming reality shows central to its brand.” An excellent decision, because if there is one thing I need, it is heartwarming shows. See also Jane the Virgin.
Lord I am exhausted by the Jane Mayer thing about Al Franken but anywhere here’s a follow-up from Jezebel. Meanwhile CBS renewed Bull, because of course they did. The world is a garbage fire.
Apparently everyone on Tinder loves tacos.
The Where the Crawdads Sing lady CAN’T GO BACK TO ZAMBIA BECAUSE OF ALLEGATIONS HER HUSBAND KILLED A MAN.
Speaking of white writers, Anne Tyler adopts “a posture of racial silence” when writing about Baltimore — which Jess Row argues is common for white writers of her generation.
This is a very unsettling piece about a particular kind of work environment. I AM UNSETTLED.
Have a great weekend, friends, and reflect on the peace-giving fact that if you haven’t been kicked out of Zambia for maybe killing a man, you are doing better than the author of a Reese Witherspoon book club book.