Vol 019 | July 8 2021

Hey, good to see you! This is the nineteenth volume of The Persistence which rounds up female focused reads to help you feel seen, save time, and make sense of the world. Thanks for dropping by.

NEWS

First up, a bit of housekeeping. It’s officially holiday time here in The Netherlands, so The Persistence will be operating a summer service for the next six weeks. As we all know planning is for fools right now, the newsletter will go from weekly to whenever the tensely managed ratio of R&R : The Rage allows. But I’ll be on Instagram on the regular, and chatting via hello@thepersistence.net Don’t be a stranger!

EMPOWER

SEX AND THE SECOND ACT

“The thrill of discovery and of being seen as a woman – not as a wife, not as a mother – was mind-blowing. It was as if I had just hit the power button on a long-dead vibrator that shocked me by roaring back to life. I was positively electrified, and I wanted more.”

That got your attention, huh? Feels like there’s some serious energy around newly single 40-somethings right now, with a growing number of female writers lifting the lid on midlife divorce - and life thereafter.

This latest piece, an arresting essay by Laura Friedman Williams, is firmly rooted in the latter, as she bares mind, body and soul about her sexual reawakening following her split. If that sounds far too Joy of Sex circa 1979 for your liking, her thoroughly modern account is anything but. Instead she explores facets of self-identity, empowerment and fulfilment that are rarely heard from a woman’s perspective, and boldly calls out the tension between fierce desires and family life. Hot topics indeed.

POWER

THE MOTHER OF ALL PROBLEMS?

“Our society functions because women have been conditioned to believe that it is our job to accommodate, to step in when someone is needed, to put others first… Even more, we receive it from the internal pressure we feel to be the ones solving the problem and ensuring our needs aren’t inconveniencing the family — an inner patriarchy many of us aren’t even aware of.”

As someone who first experimented with leaning more in to family life before the pandemic (and was trying to slither my way out just as it struck, oh how I laughed) I personally felt many lines of this piece. But if you take just one thing from ‘I sacrificed my career to care for my kids in the pandemic’, let it be the illuminating phrase ‘inner patriarchy’. While I usually bristle at stereotypes of how ‘Dads’ and ‘Mums’ behave, I think we can all get behind blaming the insidious IP for burdening many women with limitless expectations of themselves. If you’re also a mother, may I suggest deploying it as a litmus test whenever you feel you should step up or shrink yourself for the sake of the family? As the writer argues, only by taking the spotlight off ourselves, can we shine it on other solutions or highlight what’s missing.

FIRE

DON’T REMOVE THE LABEL

The prevailing sentiment after news broke of Bill Cosby’s release seemed to be “I have no words”. Eyes sad and heads shaking, it was as much as many of us could muster. On Twitter Randi Mayem Singer’s succinct sum-up quickly went viral. “We live in a world where Britney Spears has people controlling her uterus, but Bill Cosby is free. Got it.”

Of course “no words” didn’t mean we had all been shocked in to silence - sadly, the days of being surprised by the kind of logic-twisting, humanity-denying fuckery that led to this decision are long gone. Rather, what was there left to say? Another blow, another new low. Yes, apparently, anything goes.

But of course words do matter. And in this powerful piece that shudders with rage, Terri White draws on personal experience to argue for the most important one of all right now - guilty.

JOY

ARE LESBIAN BARS AN ENDANGERED SPECIES?

You can almost hear the clink of glasses and clamour of giddy voices over loud music as you read The Fight to save one of America’s last lesbian bars. The pictures too are brimming with joy, especially tantalising for those of us yet to rub shoulders again in a packed bar post-pandemic. But can there really only be 21 lesbian bars left in the whole of America? If so, it makes this tale of community and sisterhood all the sweeter.

AND FINALLY…

🎬 Obviously someone’s got the maths wrong, but it says here that Raiders of the Lost Ark is 40! Celebrating the iconic character of Marion, this star-studded piece reveals how Karen Allen took on Spielberg to create the ultimate anti-damsel in distress. Our hero.

Read something you loved? Then please share with a friend. And do let me know your feedback - on these stories, the state of the world or just what the hell’s for dinner tonight. I reply to every one.

Did someone forward this newsletter to you? Save her the hassle, and sign up here

Photo by Jayson Hinrichsen Logo design Sage Bronk