Five Favorite Stories from December and a Featured Writer
In case you missed these gems
Our newsletter is doing some soul searching at the moment. We aren’t sure how or when it’s going to manifest! In the meantime, please enjoy this newsletter “light,” which is a reprint of a story we published in early January, highlighting five of our favorite stories from December, a featured writer, and more.
We publish a LOT of stories on Fourth Wave, and all of them have something interesting or beautiful or important to say. Some days, we get so many submissions that we limit publication to four stories, just so we can live some of our lives offline.
But other days, we publish one, two, or three stories, depending on what comes in over the transom. All in all, it adds up to somewhere between 31 and 124 stories a month. Of course we’d like you to read (and highlight, and clap for, and comment on) every single one of them, but we get that you might also want to spend some of your life offline. So here is a possibly helpful list of five of my favorite Fourth Wave stories from December, along with a featured writer.
Please note: I’m not including boosted stories in this list, since I figure you’ll be seeing those in your feed anyway! These are a few of the gems you might have overlooked.
Dark Brandon, Pardon These Black Women! by NatalieSugabelle
While President Biden has pardoned a large number of people he forgot to put these brave warriors on his list. Letitia James and Fani Willis are two of the very few people who had the ovaries to stand up to former and future president Donald Trump and try to deliver some consequences for his many crimes. The good news is, there’s still time for more pardons! Here’s hoping President Biden gets Ms. Sugabelle’s message, delivered in her always engaging voice.
It’s Been 73 Years Since They Came for My Family by Mona Lazar
Regular contributor Mona Lazar lives in Romania and told me people in Eastern Europe are terrified that soon-to-be president Trump will give Ukraine to Putin and then Putin will come for the rest of them next. I told her Fourth Wave would be proud to publish a story about that, so she wrote this piece. “I don’t usually tell this story because it reminds me of my grandmother’s voice and makes me cry,” she said. She cried for two days while writing this one.
Shame Shielding — The Good News About Confronting Sexual Assault by Kate H
You don’t often find the words “good news” and “sexual assault” in the same sentence: that’s why this story is one of my five favorites from the many excellent pieces we published in December. If you’re interested in dismantling rape culture, you’ve no doubt read more than one story about the Gisele Pelicot case in France. But what Kate H writes about here is something different. She describes how that case and others are changing the global conversation about rape: shifting the shame from the victims to the perpetrators; celebrating the bravery of the victims who come forward; and showing up for the abused women in unprecedented ways. This is truly a watershed moment which Kate H is calling the second wave of Me Too.
The Root of Female Submissiveness and Servitude by Elle Beau ❇︎
Fourth Wave Editor Elle Beau ❇︎ always delivers the feminist goods with intelligent, well-researched, and articulate stories, and this one is no exception. It examines the long history of the enslavement of women — from war prizes to housewives — and how that history both begat and perpetuates a false narrative about the nature of women that deeply harms us and society as a whole.
What is This Gender About Which You Speak? by Alan Tabor
With American politics awash in homophobia and misogyny, it seems a good time to take a deep dive into the nature of gender, considering what it means, how it functions, why we care, and in what precise ways it even exists at all. Alan Tabor draws from considerable scholarship in philosophy, psychology, myth, biology, and science to pull disparate threads together and weave a picture of gender that we can all understand.
And our featured writer, Suma Narayan
Suma is a wonderful writer and person. I’ve been a reader and fan of hers for a long time, enjoying her work in multiple genres, including an exciting novel which she posted chapter by chapter that had me waiting for new installments with bated breath; heartfelt poetry; humorous stories about marriage to “the man I live with;” serious stories on Indian history, ecology, and culture; mouth watering stories about food I’ve never heard of nor tasted; and deep stories about philosophy and life.
Suma has a kind and generous nature, which soothed and settled me when we hosted a panel together on the first Medium Day, and I was anxious about the potential for misstep or failure. We held a few Zoom calls with other presenters to discuss and practice for that panel; that’s when I first saw her face, heard her voice, and felt her influence — and that’s when I first began to think of her as a friend.
I can honestly say that the best story I ever read on Medium was written by Suma. It tells of a ritual she participated in as a child with her sisters, aunts, and female cousins — when they would all wash and oil their hair together on a compound in Kerala. The atmosphere she evokes in that place and time is rapturous. As one of five daughters myself, the intensely female ambiance felt both familiar and magical. It sounded like paradise to me, and perhaps it was.
Ancient Hair Care Secrets of Kerala
Another standout piece for me was the story she wrote about the death of her mother, perhaps because it reminded me of the death of my own. I had remembered it as a poem, but when I searched for a link to include in this piece, I found it wasn’t. It just had a poetic impact on me.
I asked Suma to share some information about herself and her writing for this story, along with a photo and a few links to some favorite pieces. Here’s what I received.
I am a Postgraduate in English Language and Literature. All languages interest me. I love words and their etymology, and I am fluent in Malayalam, (my mother tongue, and the language of Kerala, my home-state) Tamil and Hindi. I understand bits of Sanskrit, Gujarati and Marathi.
I am trying my hand at German now. Learning German has been a passion with me, since I came to know that the first Malayalam dictionary was compiled by Hermann Gundert, a German missionary and scholar.
I am the poetry editor of the Fourth Wave publication. I am also an editor of the pub Hope, Healing, and Humour.
I love feeding people, so the fridge and pantry are always full of food, in case someone drops in unexpectedly.
I am fond of all growing, green things…and they love me.
I live mindfully, am spiritually inclined, and believe that prayer helps the pray-er, and everyone around her.
Thank you for reading. Wish you a hope-filled 2025.
We are so lucky to have Suma as our Poetry Editor on Fourth Wave, and I want to join her in wishing all our readers and contributors a happy and trauma-free 2025.
Finally, these Fourth Wave stories were boosted in December
In case you’re looking for a few more fantastic reads …
How Beauty, Assault, and Racism Reverberate Throughout My Life by Hope Lion
Rediscovering Ordinary in the Shadows of Extraordinary by David Lee Condrey
Trans R&B 1960s Chanteuse Celebrated in New Documentary by Lsjaffee (Writer, Educator, Over-Thinker)
We Went to Couples Counseling After 40 Years of Marriage by Patsy Fergusson
The Dangerous World of Eating Disorders Online by Streamofsocialconscience
“Holiday Magic” Is the Invisible Labor of Overworked Women by Mona Lazar
The Girlbossification of Giorgia Meloni by Stuti Thakur
All Abusive Relationships Are Abusive — Even Those in Healthcare by Katarina Felicia Lundgren
Also, btw, we did a similar thing in November:
Five Favorite Stories and a Featured Writer
Enjoy!
For more stories about global feminism and social justice for all kinds of people worldwide, follow Fourth Wave. Have you got a story or poem that focuses on women or other disempowered groups? Submit to the Wave!
