Vol 006 | April 1 2021

Welcome! Greetings from sunny Amsterdam where the tulips are in bloom and the boats back on the canals. This is the sixth volume of The Persistence, which rounds up female-focused longer reads to help you feel seen, save time, and make sense of the world. Thanks for being here.

WHO NEEDS A BREAK?

A change of pace this week. With Easter and a long holiday weekend on the horizon for most of us, this week’s newsletter is a mini break of sorts - if not from your four walls, then at least from the angrier corners of your mind (ok, mine).

The last month has been so heavy in terms of female focused news that it feels like we could all do with letting some light in. So think of the stories below as your virtual museum / cinema / gig ticket for the long weekend, and for now at least, let’s escape all the noise. Yep, even that grade A nonsense from the Swiss Army earlier this week* about providing women’s knickers for female recruits, for the first time ever. Which begs the obvious question, what do they want - a medal?

We can’t be away for long though - the patriarchy waits for no woman and all that. Meet you at the intersection of sexism and ageism next week, yeah? But for now, let’s hit the road!

THE MUSEUM TRIP SUBSTITUTE!

YOU’RE INVITED TO GLORIA STEINEM’S HOME

There is a lot to love about this virtual tour of Gloria Steinem’s apartment - for a start, it’s Gloria Steinem’s freaking apartment! It’s also the closest many of us will get to a museum trip for a while, and it plugs the gap beautifully.  Firstly, you get to wander through her bohemian styled rooms where she hosted many a meeting of the 70s feminist movement, plus peek at her book shelves and learn that a ‘sleeping balcony’ is a thing. On top of that, the tour is interlaced with audio and video clips, giving behind-the-scenes stories to all the memorabilia on the walls - and Gloria has a lot of memorabilia. Hear Alice Walker read a poem that hangs in the hallway, listen to Steinem discuss why she put Wonder Woman on the cover of Ms magazine, and count how many elephant-themed design she’s collected since 1966. Launched to celebrate her 87th birthday last week, the tour is the feminist / property porn / history sandwich you never knew you needed. See you there.

THE FILM TO DOWNLOAD!

MEET A 21ST CENTURY HEROINE WITH 90S FEELS

I can’t wait to wrestle with my UK-registered Amazon Prime account to try and watch Emerald Fennell’s directorial debut, Promising Young Woman, here in the Netherlands (and in these post-Brexit times, I will probably spend a large portion of the weekend doing just that). In case you hadn’t heard, the film which Fennell also wrote, or in her words “coughed up like a hair ball”, centres around Cassie, a young woman who fakes drunkenness on nights out to expose male sexual predators. Imagining typically dark thriller vibes? It’s styled to look like a saccharine 90s rom com, complete with pop soundtrack and love scene montages. It’s also been nominated for EVERYTHING. Golden Globes, Oscars, the lot.

What’s really given me joy though, has been getting to know Fennell first. Just as when Phoebe Waller Bridge burst on to the scene with Fleabag, she sounds like a total original, and the world feels a little more balanced - but also a little more twisted - to have her perspective of women in it. I love how free and unfiltered she is in interviews, and there have been many. These have been my favourites:

1. I don’t normally go in for interviews with actors on their “craft” (snore) but Fennell’s is fascinating, and she’s utterly unpretentious about it. Notice how she’s both single-minded in her vision, and totally at ease admitting when she doesn’t know something. Plus it unpicks all the 90s references in the movie - if reminiscing about Sweet Valley High or Paris Hilton’s singing career makes you feel warm inside, this one’s for you. How Fennell Concealed a Timely Truth Bomb in 90s Nostalgia

2. As well as being quite a mouthful, Dark, Jaded, Furious, Funny Fables of Feminist Revenge is a fascinating deep dive in to Fennell’s brain and the inspiration for her macabre plot. It’s full of sharp takes that will ferment in your brain, from female anger, and alcohol and consent, to how women are characterised on screen. “We don’t see…weird old ladies, or pervs or voyeurs,” contemplates Fennell. “We don’t see female losers at all”. And you know what? She’s right.

📺: Depending on where you live, Promising Young Woman is available to rent on Apple TV or Amazon, and on Sky from April 16 in the UK

THE HEART-WARMING READ!

HOW LOVE REALLY DID CHANGE THE WORLD

20 years ago today, Helene Faasen and Anne Marie Thus became the first lesbians in the world to legally marry, tying the knot here in Amsterdam at the stroke of midnight. In this touching read, 20 years ago these brides made LGBTQ history. Where are they now? they tell their love story and memories of their big day, which was shared with three gay male couples and beamed around the world by a huge scrum of press. I particularly love the details of after the ceremony, when they paraded through the streets in their wedding dresses and ‘were expected to make an appearance at almost every gay bar in the city’. Oh to be burdened with such an obligation now! Altogether now, “proost!”

THE ALBUM TO PLAY LOUD!

CELEBRATE THE FIRST MAN OF FEATHER BOAS

If you’re easily shocked, look away now. Tomorrow it will be 30 years to the day since Lenny Kravitz released Mama Said, his second album. I KNOW. Ridiculous isn’t it? All we can do is console ourselves with his back catalogue, which is still as fresh as his comment from 2014 that women should run the world because they “are so much more sensible, have so much better intuition and ultimately are stronger” - and feel a little smug that young-us picked such a progressive hero.

So, stick on this dream of a video from 1991, and contemplate how Kravitz rocked a feather boa long before Harry Styles could say diamanté necklace. Then indulge in this snappy interview with W magazine from the end of last year which shows that at 56, Lenny’s lost none of his fabulosity. As ever, he’s heaping praise on women and casually challenging the norms. “I was comfortable with my masculinity, or whatever you want to call it” he says nonchalantly about wearing a skirt. Plus he gives a great explanation as to why he's the only person on the planet not wearing sweatpants during lockdown. As they would have said in Abs Fabs, "It's YSL sweedie."

THE PERSIST LIST

So Genia, 2020: discuss…
Well, I stopped exercising and drank France’s supply of wine. Or to put it another way, homeschooling was hell!

And at work?
In the week the UK locked down, BEEN London was named Drapers’ Start-up of 2020. It was a dream to be recognised, but spectacularly bad timing. If people can’t leave their house, they certainly aren’t buying bags. And it just didn’t feel ethically right to try to sell things. It was a very weird moment.

How did you pivot from that?
It was incredibly stressful. We’d been going through such amazing growth, and as a startup, losing momentum feels terrifying. I had to take a big breath and recognise our advantages as a small DTC business, with no full-time staff or office at that point. I realised I finally had time to take on the massive project of figuring out the total carbon footprint of our bags. It was a five month journey, analysing everything from shipping distances to the electricity bills of our studio. But now we know that the carbon footprint of one of our designs is 87% smaller than a similar high street bag made in China. That’s the equivalent of keeping your lights on for a year! I’d never been able to get in to that detail before - lockdown gave me the space.

What have you learnt about your business?
Ultimately, the disruption forced me to go back to my original goals for BEEN London, one of which was to make a positive impact. Now I can concretely prove that we do. What I worked on during lockdown turned out to be the most important thing for our business.

Where have you found hope in bleaker moments?
There was a point when our entire shipping team had to self isolate. They’re all Londoners with learning difficulties and work through a program explicitly set up to help them feel less isolated from society, so this felt really upsetting. So we told our customers what was happening via our mailing list, and asked if anyone wanted to send them a message. The response was amazing. So many people got in touch with very personal notes telling them to hang in there. It was really special.

What have you learnt about yourself during the pandemic?
Even though I have been practicing meditation for years, the lockdown has completely messed up my ability to do it. Same with yoga. I went from three times a week to zero. But I’ve found comfort in what I thought I hated - regular rituals like a weekly movie night with the kids or a Sunday morning walk with a friend. I've learnt to see myself in new ways.

What have been your secret weapons?
1. The Happiness Lab podcast by Prof. Laurie Santos - the most grounding, beautiful listen about how our mind tricks us into being miserable, and how small changes in how we think can make us happier.
2. Long baths. (The best is the combo of the two) 
3. Morning coffee with my husband in our front garden to regroup before the start of the day.

✭ Using the code PERSISTENCE will get you 15% off the entire BEEN London bag collection!

*I regret to inform you that this is not an April Fool’s joke

I love hearing your thoughts - on these stories, the state of the world, or just what the hell’s for dinner tonight. Drop me a line, unlike on Whatsapp, I reply to every one!

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Photo by V Srinivasan on Unsplash Logo design Sage Bronk