Originally appeared on Left Standing Up. Republished here with permission. Ten minutes. I was hitting the 10-minute mark of just standing in front of the freezers, seemingly debating whether to buy a quart or a gallon of milk. Or perhaps unsure of which kind I wanted. Skim or whole? Maybe 2%? I had a pensive […]
Originally appeared on Mamamia.com. Republished here with permission. All the women I know like condoms. They buy a box at the supermarket; they keep them conveniently stashed in a bedside table. If they’re in bed with a guy, they politely ask him to wear a condom before anything, uh, gets put anywhere. Know what I’m […]
Sarah Erdreich is a self-identified feminist, but she still wanted her husband to propose. Years ago, a close friend told me that he was going to propose to his girlfriend the following week. “That’s great,” I replied, not very surprised; we’d been having this conversation for months, always followed by brainstorming ways he could do […]
Sometimes poetic nostalgia for an idyllic “traditional family” past just masks a stubborn refusal to accept reality, says Role/Reboot’s Editor-in-Chief Nicole Rodgers. Conservative men love to summon righteous indignation anytime it’s brought to their attention that the real world does not resemble an episode of Leave It To Beaver. So strong reactions to Wednesday’s Pew […]
This week’s roundup of our favorites from across the interwebs to help you make sense of men and women. 1. A Work-Life Ways To Go by Ellen Galinsky of The Daily Beast says it’s not a women’s issue, or a children’s issue, or a strictly personal issue. It’s about how we are as a nation—and […]
This originally appeared on Jayson Gaddis’s website. Republished here with permission. Is your son less of a boy or man if he wears pink? Chances are, if a boy wears pink in this culture he will likely be judged as gay or feminine over time. I paint my toenails. I wear pink sometimes. My son […]
When the rules don’t apply to you, you get to make up your own. I want an ungendered marriage. Although I am a straight woman and by all odds I will marry a straight man, I want a marriage where those labels are irrelevant. I want a partnership so devoid of gendered assumptions that if […]
Plenty of female characters on TV today have made being a “hot mess” popular, but Emilie Aries wants women to stop pretending to be coy and confused, and start acting like they’re in charge. I’ll confess it: I’m a recovering hot mess. In the years after college, I was often self-deprecating and unconfident, minimizing my […]
Whether it’s refusing to circumcise your son or giving your teenage daughter birth control, breaking with tradition still makes people uncomfortable. “We’re not doing Easter this year,” I said. “You have to color eggs,” my mom replied. “I don’t have to do anything.” I’ve had the same interaction with my mother a dozen times or […]
This originally appeared on Charlie Glickman’s website. Republished here with permission. I recently discovered a post that Yahsar Ali wrote last year about the ways in which men are often coddled around their emotions by the women in their lives. Rather than expecting guys to speak up about their feelings, to apologize when they need […]
This originally appeared on The Daily Life. Republished here with author’s permission. When a friend’s son asked her for a pink floral bike helmet, she lied and told him they didn’t have the floral ones in his size. He went home with a plain blue one instead. “I hate myself for doing it,” she tells […]
Men are often expected to support their grieving female partners after a pregnancy loss, but who’s supporting them? Chris had a miscarriage. We were about nine weeks in when the doctor unceremoniously announced he could no longer detect a heartbeat in our pea-sized bundle to be. I stared and stared at the ultrasound monitor, willing […]
