It’s time for the latest edition of Stories You Should Read This Week. I’ve got six links to awesome things I’ve read around the internet recently. Read them at work, read them on the bus, read them in bed. Tell me what you think, tell the authors what you think, tell everyone what you think.
Burgers, Bitches, and Bullshit by Bethany Cosentino (via Lenny Letter)
I generally like to avoid most-things-Lena-Dunham, but this essay by Best Coast’s front woman Bethany Cosentino on Dunham’s Lenny Letter site is a must-read. Not because her experiences–being told to smile, being lauded for her looks over her achievements–will be unfamiliar to many (most) women, nor because should come as a surprise that success may only increase these sexist instances, but because Cosentino rightly joins artists like Cvrches’ Lauren Mayberry in loudly and boldly calling these assholes out.
A Chat About Diversity in Publishing by Nicole Chung and Linda Z (via The Toast)
Like the interviewee, who works in my dream career of publishing, I fit the majority demographic of the publishing industry: female, white, straight, cisgender, able-bodied, and from an educated, middle-class background. Yet books about people in this demographic are still so often pigenholed as “Women’s lit” rather than just “lit,” and books by women who are minorities in other ways (non-white, LGBT, and so on) are even further marginalized on the shelves. The current cultural conversation is about another media format (see #OscarsSoWhite) but it’s just as relevant in books.
Marcia Clark On What Episode One of The People v. O.J. Simpson Got Right and Wrong by Maria Elena Fernandez (via Vulture)
I’m a little too young to really remember the O.J. Simpson trial, but I still remember and know that it was a major event if not the major event of the mid-90s, so of course I was excited for the start of this miniseries, even if it’s helmed by Ryan Murphy. In this interview, Marcia Clark talks about her reaction to the premiere episode.
An Invitation Into the Shadowy World of Match Fixing by Ben Rothenberg (via NY Times)
Match fixing conspiracies seem to abound whenever there’s an upset, or a lot of betting on a match, or pretty much any time a sport is played. But it does happen, sometimes obviously and sometimes not. Tennis is the sport currently embroiled in the scandal, but this fascinating read could surely occur in any sport.
Alternatives to Resting Bitch Face by Susan Harlan (via McSweeney’s)
I’ll just post an excerpt from this perfect list:
I Would Prefer Not To Face
A Smidge of Self-Awareness Would Not Go Amiss Face
The Situations Are Really Not Analogous Face
Please Tip a Bottle of Bourbon Down My Throat Immediately Face
Stop Trying To Out-Feminist Each Other by Maya Kachroo-Levine (via The Financial Diet)
I’ve been reading The Financial Diet recently since my fellow Ithaca journalism alumna Maya is a writer there, and I enjoyed this piece she wrote about your earning versus your partner’s earning and whether it matters as a feminist. She says, and I agree, that it doesn’t. If you earn less than—or more than! or the same as!—your SO, your partnership and everything else in your life can empower you as a woman and a feminist, and just because you don’t shout about it doesn’t mean people can tell you otherwise.
thebestpossibletime 