My Five Favorite Stories September 13–20

Which were yours?

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

The biggest news around here is our Principal Editor in Pakistan

MunibaKasi

went into the hospital on Friday to have her baby girl Noor, who I’m proud to announce is my very first goddaughter! Muni asked if I would be Noor’s godmother because she wants her daughter “to know a feminist.” This brings up so many feelings in me.

First and foremost, I feel extremely lucky and honored that my work on Fourth Wave has led to me meeting women in faraway places who are working to improve our lot worldwide. This includes especially Muni in Pakistan and

Esther Uwanah Edet

in Nigeria, who is Fourth Wave’s other Principal Editor. The three of us meet every week on Zoom and that alone is a practical miracle to me. I’m old enough (70) to remember a time when there were no computers or cell phones and calling internationally was expensive and rare. But today’s technology which has caused a lot of radicalization and harm in the U.S. is also what allows we three to make this connection to each other and bridge some pretty big gaps in the feminist movement.

One of those big gaps was in my own consciousness. Because before I started Fourth Wave in 2019 and during its beginning years, I didn’t truly see how the women’s movement in the U.S. was connected to the harms happening to women in other countries. But now that…