The political memoir is a literary genre that consists mostly of carefully coded humblebrags; here, though, was an insight about bragging itself. Reading it, I felt a pang. American culture is fluent by now in the easy language of female empowerment. One of the 50,485,942 or so pieces of evidence that the rhetoric has outpaced the reality is the idea that women who achieve things aren’t supposed to say so. The sanction goes beyond general-purpose puritanism (self-confidence good! self-importance bad!). It has to do with the fact that, regardless of our own gender, we still tend to view women as self- sacrificial and self-effacing, first and foremost—mothers, basically, whether they have children or not. That’s how you get a situation where Target sells T-shirts that read SHE CAN/SHE WILL— and where you can also pretty safely assume that, if you compliment a woman about the thing she did, she’ll reply, “Oh, it was nothing.”
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 2020 من The Atlantic.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 2020 من The Atlantic.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Before Facebook, There Was BlackPlanet
An alternative history of the social web
After the Miracle
Cystic fibrosis once guaranteed an early deathbut a medical breakthrough has given many patients a chance to live decades longer than expected. What do they do now?
WILLIAM WHITWORTH 1937-2024
WILLIAM WHITWORTH, the editor of The Atlantic from 1980 to 1999, had a soft voice and an Arkansas accent that decades of living in New York and New England never much eroded.
Christine Blasey Ford Testifies Again
Her new memoir doubles as a modern-day horror story.
Is Theo Von the Next Joe Rogan?
Or is he something else entirely?
Orwell's Escape
Why the author repaired to the remote Isle of Jura to write his masterpiece, 1984
What's So Bad About Asking Where Humans Came From?
Human origin stories have often been used for nefarious purposes. That doesn't mean they are worthless.
Miranda's Last Gift
When our daughter died suddenly, she left us with grief, memories and Ringo.
CLASH OF THE PATRIARCHS
A hard-line Russian bishop backed by the political might of the Kremlin could split the Orthodox Church in two.
THE MAN WHO DIED FOR THE LIBERAL ARTS
Chugging through Pacific waters in February 1942, the USS Crescent City was ferrying construction equipment and Navy personnel to Pearl Harbor, dispatched there to assist in repairing the severely damaged naval base after the Japanese attack.