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Letter From the Editor: Why Solidarity Matters


The Women’s March. #MeToo. #NeverAgain.

In the past year we’ve seen a torrent of social movements take hold and shape our culture. But they didn’t start with hundreds of people automatically raising their hands to take to the streets. History proves that change begins when someone, often a woman, shares how she is fed up or too affected to look away from a problem that, with tenacity, really can be fixed. Then someone else says, “I’ll stand with you”—and just like that, a movement is born.

I’ve been blessed to have someone back me unequivocally like that—two people, actually. I’m one of what some call Irish triplets. I’m the middle child, anchored by Davina and Brendan on either side, all roughly a year apart. Beyond the obvious closeness that brings, we’ve forged a strong bond over the years, from conspiring against our parents at bedtime to sharing stories of teenage heartbreak. Today we are scattered, leading hectic lives—Davina with her husband and three children under five in Sweden, Brendan with his daughter and girlfriend in Ireland, and me in this new job in New York—but we’ve managed to stay in daily contact, thanks to FaceTime, WhatsApp, and a little determination. From our teen years to today, they’ve constantly had my back. Davina often tells me, “Walk out. And I’m walking out right behind you,” with Brendan already on his feet, saying, “I’ll get the door.” They’ve always made me feel supported.

In this issue we examine the big and small ways women come together in solidarity for a common good. I’m in awe of these women—from Anne Hathaway, who is part of the badass cast of Ocean’s 8 taking on a male-centric franchise formerly helmed by George Clooney and Brad Pitt and making it one of the most anticipated movies of the year, to the record-setting number of African-American women in Alabama running for office, who want to make sure the issues they care about finally get their due. As one expert told us about how those women joined forces: “There was this robust energy, and once energy like that has been released, it doesn’t go away.”

So here’s to movements, and the sisterhoods behind them. I hope you always have that person who says, “I’ll get the door.”



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Pink Wrote a Powerful Open Letter to the Grammys President for Saying Women Need to 'Step Up'


So many women released great music last year: Cardi B., Kesha, Lady Gaga, Lorde, SZA, Pink, Katy Perry…and that’s just a few examples. And while some of these artists received Grammy nominations for the 2018 ceremony, the final list of honorees was predominantly male. This was perhaps most apparent in the Album of the Year category, which only featured one female nominee (Lorde’s Melodrama).

When it came to the final winners, men swept the 2018 Grammy Awards on Sunday night, too. The only woman who won a major award was Alessia Cara for Best New Artist. Four women were nominated for Best Pop Vocal Performance, but Ed Sheeran—the only male nominee in that category—won the honor. Women, more or less, were completely shut out of the show, which for many was both confusing and infuriating.

But not as infuriating as the Recording Academy president Neil Portnow’s rationale for the snubs. “I think it has to begin with women who have the creativity in their hearts and their souls—who want to be musicians, who want to be engineers, who want to be producers, who want to be part of the industry on an executive level—to step up, because I think they would be welcome,” he said, according to USA Today.

Yes, you read that correctly. Portnow thinks women weren’t awarded at the Grammys Sunday because they haven’t “stepped up” to the plate—whatever that means. This should go without saying, but women have been stepping up—for decades. There’s just an institutional bias in the music industry toward male artists. Their work is viewed as more valuable, and that’s why they keep winning year after year.

Pink echoed this in an open letter to Portnow that she posted to social media. “Women in music don’t need to ‘step up’ – women have been stepping since the beginning of time,” she wrote. “Stepping up, and also steppin aside. Women OWNED music this year. They’ve been KILLING IT. And every year before this. When we celebrate and honor the talent and accomplishments of women, and how much women STEP UP every year, against all odds, we show the next generation of women and girls and boys and men what it means to be equal, and what it looks like to be fair.”

See her message for yourself, below.

Female artists quickly rallied around Pink after she posted this. “Another powerful woman, leading by example,” Katy Perry tweeted. “We ALL have a responsibility to call out the absurd lack of equality everywhere we see it. I’m proud of ALL the women making incredible art in the face of continual resistance. ✊?” Charli XCX tweeted, “Women are making AMAZING music right now wtf is this dude talking about ?????” (We have no idea.)

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Pink Responds to Rumors She Cringed During Christina Aguilera’s American Music Awards Performance

Pink Finally Opened Up About Her Infamous Feud With Christina Aguilera





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A 'The Bachelor' Fan Writes an Open Letter to Bekah M. About Guys Like Arie Luyendyk Jr.


Dear Bekah M.,

First off, I am actively rooting for you, as you are one of the coolest contestants to ever be on The Bachelor. But I’ve found that this season and, for lack of a better word, the “storyline” the producers have given you feel very familiar to me. So I wouldn’t call what I want to tell you advice, per se—I don’t claim to know it all, nor do I think my experiences are superior to anybody else’s—but I, and likely many other women, have been in your position. We dated an Arie; we knew him; we cried over him; we sent texts we regret to him (arguably, the only benefit to not having a phone on The Bachelor). And by “an Arie,” I mean the type of man to pull the age card.

Arie views age in a really weird dichotomous way. He fetishizes young women (there is no one above 29 left—he’s 36). He’s also expressed to you that you’re so young, and he is so old, because he likes to get up early. There’s nothing worse when you’re 22, 23, or 24—or any age, really—than being told you’re “so young” and then mansplained how you can’t appreciate things like mornings or marriage. Who are these men to tell you what you can or cannot appreciate? Equally awful is when a prospective partner tries to tell you how to “view” something in order to be “accepted” by him—like this sport, be a “chill” girl, the whole “mold your dream to mine!” logic. The Bachelor enforces the twisted idea that women should shape-shift in order to meet the needs of some lonely man. One of the reasons you’ve emerged a fan favorite is because you clearly subvert those tropes that have been heavily pushed for nearly 16 years; you’re not going to change yourself for Arie.

But the age card is a particularly touchy, irritating, and frustrating thing. It’s literally something you can’t control. When an older guy (as in, older than you, not just, like, Old), uses his age as leverage against you, he likely does it because it makes him feel powerful and authoritative and therefore, somehow right, no matter how gravely wrong he is. Sometimes men do this because they’re intimidated by women and feel that using a concrete number is the only way they can retain power. Sometimes they do it because they want to be in control. It’s an infuriating dynamic.

I know this frustration too well because I’ve been told before that I was so young. In one instance I think it was meant to be an insult, but I found that a ridiculous thing to criticize me for—it wasn’t anything but a fact. You got it, man; how observant and good at calendars you are—I was born later than you! It was tiring to hear it all the time, like my age was something I should be apologizing for, when I had zero control over when I exited my mother’s womb.

Some of these men saw my age as a synonym for disposable—like Arie, they thought they could make the call if I was relationship-ready, which is unnerving. I also remember drunkenly sobbing over these guys, asking why?! Why couldn’t I be anything more? Why was the fact that I was “so young” (even if I was just approximately four years younger than they were) such a deal breaker? Were they right?! They couldn’t be! I was different! I’m independent, I said, I know what I’m doing, I’m mature, I pay rent, I don’t live with my parents…what else do you want from me? To alternate the way the space-time continuum works? And even if I was young, I could be his muse, and if he let me go, the thought of me would haunt his spirit forever because I changed him.

But for all of the songs I wrote while I was writhing in pain, there was one thing I couldn’t see then that I totally see now—and that any woman who has yearned for a man who rejected her can likely see: They weren’t good for me. Actually, they weren’t that great at all. It had nothing to do with their age—not all guys who are older are bad—but someone who pulls the age card is special type of loser. Men who like to tell women they’re young will likely never get over that very normal fact and will always keep saying it; they’ll love that false rush of power they get from pointing it out. That kind of man wouldn’t have been much fun to be in a relationship with. After all, he’s the same guy who makes us feel bad for being the very thing that we are and have no control over. The person who pushes us to spill our emotions in monologue form to “convince” him that we’re right for him.

My point is, Bekah M., that you’re too good for him, or any man like that. You deserve better than someone who mansplains time to you. I said I was “rooting for you,” and by that I mean, I hope you don’t end up with Arie. So if he eliminates this you week, don’t think of it as being eliminated. Think of it as being freed from the trappings of his toxic masculinity and his loud smacking kisses! Also, here is my humble plea for you to come back as The Bachelorette at your discretion.

Sincerely,

Mallory, a Person Who Has Certainly Given Monologues About Her Feelings And Has No Regrets



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French Icon Catherine Deneuve Signs Controversial Open Letter Criticizing #MeToo Movement


Catherine Deneuve, the 74-year-old French actress known for her decades-long career, has joined 99 other women in signing an open letter that challenges the #MeToo movement and its French counterpart #Balancetonporc, claiming that the public campaigns infantilize women, limit sexual freedom, and contribute to “puritanical” and “totalitarian” thinking.

The letter was published Tuesday in French newspaper Le Monde, and its signatories are academics, entertainers, and writers, including author Catherine Millet, psychoanalyst Catherine Robbe-Grillet, and actress Christine Boisson.

“Rape is a crime. But insistent or clumsy flirting is not a crime, nor is gallantry a chauvinist aggression,” the women write, according to a translation printed in The New York Times. “As a result of the Weinstein affair, there has been a legitimate realization of the sexual violence women experience, particularly in the workplace, where some men abuse their power. It was necessary. But now this liberation of speech has been turned on its head.”

In the letter, the women also denounced #MeToo for punishing men too abruptly. Likening the public reckoning that’s ousted many high-profile men from positions of power to a “witch hunt,” they lamented that “expedited justice already has its victims, men prevented from practicing their profession as punishment, forced to resign, etc., while the only thing they did wrong was touching a knee, trying to steal a kiss, or speaking about ‘intimate’ things at a work dinner…”

The letter is likely an example of problematic generational divides that complicate the #MeToo conversation and fail to hold men accountable for their behavior: Last year, designer Donna Karan, 69, apologized after saying that women who were assaulted by film producer Harvey Weinstein were “asking for it.” Ninety-two-year-old actress Angela Lansbury also made the world cringe when she said women “must sometimes take blame” for harassment. And, in an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine back in 2015, rocker Chrissie Hynde, 66, said she took “full responsibility” for a sexual assault incident she experienced at age 21, in which she was raped by a motorcycle gang member who offered her a ride to a party.

Plus, as The Atlantic points out, there are also cultural differences at play here. While women in the U.S. may feel a strength in numbers and solidarity in speaking out French women may fear that “naming names will more likely win you accusations of being a ‘collabo,’ or turncoat, not to mention an affront to your own sex appeal.

Needless to say, Le Monde letter met with a wave of backlash that was swift and biting.

Italian actress Asia Argento—one of the first women to accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct—tweeted “Deneuve and other French women tell the world how their interiorized misogyny has lobotomized them to the point of no return,” while a group of about 30 activists, led by French feminist Caroline De Haas, responded by saying that Deneuve and the co-signers had conflated flirting and sexual violence.

“One means treating the other as your equal, respecting their desires, whatever they may be. The other is treating them as an object at your disposal, paying no attention to their own desires, or their consent,” they wrote.

Deneuve has spoken about women’s issues in the past, even admitting to having an illegal abortion in France in the 1970s. However, it’s not the first time she’s denounced #MeToo—she called the movement “excessive” last fall. She’s also been criticized for defending the director Roman Polanski, who pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.





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Al Franken's Female 'SNL' Colleagues Wrote a Letter to 'Stand Up' for Him


Less than a week after Lena Dunham had to apologize for defending Girls writer Murray Miller against accusations of sexual assault, 36 women from former Saturday Night Live casts have written a letter in support of senator Al Franken.

The senator and SNL alum was accused of alleged sexual harassment and groping by radio host Leeann Tweeden last week, who also shared a photo of Franken grinning while groping her. A few days later, another woman, Lindsay Menz, came forward claiming he grabbed her at a state fair during a photo, including a picture of the alleged exchange. Franken has since apologized to Tweeden and called for an ethics investigation, while telling CNN he does not recall the incident with Menz, but feels badly about her feeling “disrespected.”

Now, the senator’s female colleagues from SNL have written a letter supporting him, saying he never sexually harassed them and applauding him for his apology to Tweeden. It reads:

We feel compelled to stand up for Al Franken, whom we have all had the
pleasure of working with over the years on Saturday Night Live (SNL).

What Al did was stupid and foolish, and we think it was appropriate
for him to apologize to Ms. Tweeden, and to the public. In our
experience, we know Al as a devoted and dedicated family man, a
wonderful comedic performer, and an honorable public servant. That is
why we are moved to quickly and directly affirm that after years of
working with him, we would like to acknowledge that not one of us ever
experienced any inappropriate behavior; and mention our sincere
appreciation that he treated each of us with the utmost respect and
regard.

We send our support and gratitude to Al and his family this
Thanksgiving and holiday season.

The letter is signed by 36 women who include former SNL writers, production assistants, producers, and cast members. Although NBC made the letter public on Monday morning, it’s already been harshly criticized. Twitter users have particularly zoomed in on the section about “inappropriate behavior,” saying that Franken not harassing his colleagues doesn’t preclude him from harassing someone else. Others have compared the letter to Dunham’s defense of Miller and the slew of female Fox News anchors who defended Roger Ailes, who resigned following allegations of sexual harassment.





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Jazz Jennings Penned a Powerful Letter to Her 5-Year-Old Self


Youtube and reality TV star Jazz Jennings was only five when she came out as transgender and begun transitioning in the public eye. Now 16, she wrote a letter for New Now Next with encouraging words to her younger self from before she came out.

“I know that so many people attempt to cloud the purity of your happiness with their tenacious hatred,” she wrote. “I know that your eyes glisten with hope, yet they will still be denied by the intolerance of society. I know that your heart beats with the gratifying rhythm of freedom yet so many others prefer the trepidatious sound of fear or the unrelenting drum of cruelty. However, let that hope in your eyes and the love in your heart continuously be confident that one day everyone will be able to hear that alluring melody of freedom. Continue to smile big and move forward in the direction of progress, for you will see change be brought upon this world—a change that you will help create.”

Jennings wrote for Time last year that she’s known she was transgender ever since she “could form coherent thoughts.” Soon after she learned to walk, she undid her onesie to make it a dress. She would ask people to say “good girl” instead of “good boy” and wanted to play with boys’ toys. When she learned what being transgender meant, she had an “overwhelming sense of relief that there was finally a word that described me.”

For over two years, Jennings has starred in TLC’s I Am Jazz, which brings awareness to the issues trans people deal with through a glimpse into her life. She recently told Glamour that such awareness has become even more important since Trump’s election. In February, Trump’s administration rolled back Title IX protections allowing transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice.

“We know now more than ever that we have to stay strong and stay united, and this motivates us to make our voices heard, and speak out and march together,” Jennings said. “I feel like that’s where that hope comes from.”

Related Stories:

Jazz Jennings: Why Trump’s Presidency Has United Trans Youth More Than Ever



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