I published this column on Friday and was traveling so couldn't engage, but there are a couple of things that I didn't have space to include in the piece that I'd like to add. In no particular order: thecut.com/article/why-is… Brooks column I cite includes this advice: "Please read books on how to decide whom to marry. Read George Eliot & Jane Austen." So. Coupla things... 1. Eliot spent years w man who was married to someone else (& penned some of most memorably awful marriages in English literature)

I wrote in my lengthy profile of Fetterman this week about how open he has been about his ongoing stroke recovery, and how awful it is to watch not just Fox but mainstream media push for “transparency” even as he offers just that. nymag.com/intelligencer/… Watching tv news/online pundits leer over clips of an interview in which he’s completely engaged and communicative is stomach-turning and a super depressing example of what I was trying to describe:

No, this is not a world transformed by Trump. It’s one in which generations of Repubs have been open about their brutal aim, while Dem leaders have repeatedly asked voters to trust them in fight that they refused to accurately describe or even discern: thecut.com/2022/05/roe-v-… Rhetorically, Democrats have had their lunch money stolen by these fantasists. In part because, while Republicans could commit to their bit with theatrical force, the left has been unwilling to embrace the real, nonfiction, moral urgency of their cause. thecut.com/2022/05/roe-v-…

In 2010 when Ginni Thomas left a voice mail for Anita Hill saying "I would love you to consider an apology and a full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband" it was exceedingly clear that she was bananas and also extremely bad. I also don't know why this sticks with me so much, but Ginni left the voice mail on Hill's work line. So she walked into her office, at her job, where she worked, & picked up her phone to find a message. From Ginni Thomas. 19 years (practically to the day) after her testimony.

I wrote about the expected fall of Roe and on the systemic unwillingness to take the full humanity of women, of pregnant people, of Black and brown and poor people, seriously: nymag.com/intelligencer/… Overturn will not be about one failed electoral campaign or badly timed SCOTUS death...it would not have been made vulnerable to these quirks of timing & personality had it ever had the institutional, ideological, intellectual, & emotional muscle behind it that it deserved.

Thing about early-hetero-married-parental model isn't that it is inherently bad or good; that depends on individuals & circumstances. It's that over centuries it has functioned both as an oppressive norm & been held punishingly out of reach (depending on race & class position). Early marriage model organized power & distributed labor along gendered lines, created dependency & determined legitimacy. That's not a critique of many happily married couples! Just what the institution in its most traditional form has done, historically.

A short mad thread: Last night, I reported that @RepJayapal had tested positive for COVID after having been sequestered during the Capitol siege with Republican colleagues, some of whom refused to wear masks: thecut.com/2021/01/rep-ja… Today I woke to many self-satisfied people tweeting me some version of this photo, showing Jayapal, on Weds, not wearing her own mask. Hey, great catch, gob-rockets! That thing you see in her right hand? It is the gas mask she's been asked to put on by Capitol police.

My lengthy conversation w @RepJayapal about Wed's violence, being left in the House gallery as rioters broke windows, her rage, her keen awareness as an immigrant & woman of color of the peril she, her colleagues & democracy face & what Dems must do next: thecut.com/2021/01/pramil… "The threat is extremely real," she told me. "I just knew this was going to be terrible and consequential. And that it would not be fixable quickly....I saw them put a Confederate flag on the Capitol."

“‘She laughed & said, ‘that’s politics.’ She had no remorse’” said Chris Dodd. When your pals help you pick your lady VP based on how contrite she is about having challenged you in a debate. No no no no no nope this is gonna be the thing that ends me. politico.com/news/2020/07/2… Note it’s the fact that she LAUGHED that put Dodd over the edge. What’s the line? Women are afraid men will kill them; men are afraid women will laugh at them?

Women’s anger at male power abuse regularly presented as path to self-advancement for the women. Voicing fury at systemic degradation is read as opportunistic. Whereas men’s abusive behavior rarely understood as fundamental to how they attained & maintain THEIR power. But it is!

https://twitter.com/markharrisnyc/status/1286494080415997952

Framing women (would-be competitors & adversaries) as bitches, as crazy, as disgusting, as stupid—in private & in public—is huge part of how men gain & maintain disproportionate power, but that’s very rarely acknowledged, permitting myth that men somehow earned a greater share.

I wrote this last year, but it's evergreen. In 2008, Deutsch called Palin a "new feminist ideal:" because "I want her watching my kids … I want her laying in bed next to me...women want to be her, men want to mate with her" He's paid to explain politics. thecut.com/2019/07/politi… In a 2005 book he wrote "I cannot remember a time in my career when I was not having either a flirtation with a woman in the office, or a friendship, a fantasy, or all of the above. I am at my best when women are there to energize & excite me." He's tasked with political analysis

Also, a thread about this piece & some stuff that didn't wind up in it. First, when I was playing with the Breakfast Club menu of caricatures up top, I realized that several of the women could fit multiple roles, based on how they've been presented. thecut.com/2019/11/lesson… ie: who's the lightweight? who's the meanie? There can be several answers, bc so many of them can be, and have been, labeled with more than one derogatory stereotype. Which is fascinating, since several of those stereotypes kind of contradict each other!

If you are asking "is it accurate to say you were fired? Forced to resign? How would you characterize this?" you may simply not know much about a discriminatory practice that was AN ACCEPTED NORM until, like, five minutes ago & that still happens even tho it is officially illegal

https://twitter.com/cbszak/status/1181634869056753665

In her 2014 book Waren writes that the "principal did what I think a lot of principals did back then--wished me luck, didn't ask me back for the next school year & hired someone else for the job." Even in 2014, she's describing it as something she understood BECAUSE IT WAS NORMAL

A good morning for reading suggestions to help process fury. Because I wrote it, I’ll start with my book, Good and Mad, about the history & political power of women’s anger, now in paperback (& on sale in hardcover). BUT WAIT THERE’S LOTS MORE: amazon.com/Good-Mad-Revol… Like @schemaly’s eye-opening Rage Becomes her, an exploration of women’s anger on a global scale, also in paperback: amazon.com/Rage-Becomes-H…

So Donnie Deutsch-apparently now an MSNBC host?-just said that while he found Warren "delightful," she didn't have what it takes to stand on a stage & face off against Trump. Lawrence O'Donnell challenged him & Deutsch got angry, braying about his 30 years studying human behavior So here's how Deutsch, the Jane Goodall of cable news analysis, described Sarah Palin in 08: As a new "feminist ideal," appealing because she did what HRC did not--"put a skirt on." "I want her watching my kids," Deutsch said of Palin then. "I want her laying next to me in bed."

Okay, woof. Just read this and really, where to start? How about with ‘I've been struggling with the problems that Hyde now presents,’ Biden said.” Let’s spend a second on the word “now,” Democratic front-runner. news.yahoo.com/joe-biden-reve… Hyde has been keeping low income people from accessing abortions since 1976 when Biden voted for it with no exceptions. That’s how long—more than 40 years—this piece of cruel, punitive law has denied people the safe, legal healthcare they require, just because they are poor.

“Some say Democrats are angry...well I don’t believe it.” This man is gonna be the end of me. I’m curious how he thinks any reform of the founding inequalities he so dutifully mentions in the first excerpt was achieved...rainbows, smiles, & affable affection for the oppressors?

https://twitter.com/olivianuzzi/status/1129720696702230528

Who IS this guy, suggesting that anger many feel at injustice & inequity & the suffering they cause is same as Trump’s punitive fury on behalf of himself & white patriarchal power? Anger at injustice has catalyzed transformative change; “unity” has not. Joe is deeply wrong.

I mean, sure, because really what WERE the long-lasting repercussions? Has the harasser whose confirmation hearings Biden presided over served on the highest court for the past 27 years, determining voting rights & the outcomes of presidential elections? npr.org/2019/05/07/720… Did America never get to hear the testimony of the three other women who were willing to back up Anita Hill's claims? Were Anita Hill's life & career permanently reshaped by the hearings, her reputation altered by the way she was treated by members of a committee Biden headed up?

I. Did. Watch. The. Entire. Video. It’s also really bad. I am so mystified and dismayed by the level of defense here. It was not manipulated; it was shortened. This is NOT project Veritas & critics do a disservice to those harmed & lied about by O’Keefe in making that comparison.

https://twitter.com/cherylt777/status/1099305097454964737

Activists streamed the whole thing: they therefore offered full context AND a short digestible version, standard practice. Long version shows aspects that bothered me most (“I just won a big election;” “actually you didn’t vote for me”) are intact & in context in the edit.

A long book thread, because it's pub day for @Sarah_Smarsh's Heartland, which I've started & is gorgeous (& long-listed for a National Book Award!) & because I got behind on books when I was writing my own & am now taking such pleasure in catching up: amazon.com/Heartland-Memo… Do not miss @schemaly's Rage Becomes Her, which was published last week and is on a topic near and dear to my heart, women's anger, and is REALLY good: amazon.com/Rage-Becomes-H…

This is impossible to listen to, and yet we have to. We have to, we have to, we have to.
propublica.org/article/childr… Let's make sure that the aims here don't end with getting rid of the cages, or even reuniting kids with parents, but rather with offering people, these families and others, true refuge, resources, support--with the long overdue revision of our horrific immigration policies.