Woman Crush Weekly, No. 27
From Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Donna Zuckerberg women are redefining research, politics, and business. Just don’t let the boys know.
The Women of the 116th Congress
Oh, here we are again. And by here, I mean a realm where men — and the women intoxicated by the Patriarchy who love them — roll their eyes at a group of earnest women shining on each other and hope it devolves into a cat fight. Lemme break this down, if I can. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is 29, the youngest person ever elected to the House of Representatives. She is joined by a group of other women who are young and old, white and not white, progressive and middle-of-the-road, digital natives and luddites, but the one thing they all have in common is that they make a certain subsection of the U.S. populace nervous AF.
So, obviously, it’s time to start trying to drag them down with all the tools the Patriarchy has at its disposal: Criticizing the way they dress, the way they talk, the way they utilize social media, the people they hang out with, the words they say, the stories they tell. Nothing must be believed. Everything must be questioned.
If you have never heard of it, Shine Theory — coined by the superhero hosts of Call Your Girlfriend — is a framework for female friendship, a way for women to amplify the work of other women, a way to lift each other up, a way to avoid the embarrassing female sin of sounding braggy, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is here for it.
It reminds me so much of the way that America’s new crop of elite women marathoners work together, spearheaded by my eternal woman-crush Shalane Flanagan, and I think that’s an apt metaphor: Getting elected was the training, now it’s time to run the race. It’s a long, slow, painful race. We, they, must pace ourselves.
But here’s the thing about pacing, about running your race, it’s best done with a crew. Running is seen as the most iconic of solitary sports, but to truly shine (there’s that word again) it helps to have people to talk to, to train with, to scheme with, to plot with, to laugh with, to cry with, to rage with. The best races are those run with your friends, your loves, your partners of the heart, and THAT is what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her squad know, it is what makes them (and me) giddy, and it is what scares the shit out of the Patriarchy.
When women bond and band together they become something magical and something to be feared. Think about the collective nouns that exist for groups of women. Coven? Oh yay! Witches! Convent? Let’s take away their power by desexualizing them. Sorority? Air heads! Bubble brains! Bluestockings? Over-educated, sexually deviant know-it-alls. Do you get my drift?
The women of the 116th U.S. Congress have the opportunity not to just make history, they also may have the chance to rewrite how generations of humans think about female friendship and female power and what the trend line is for a woman’s career. This is big. It is an iceberg. There is so much more beneath the surface of this, and I wish these incredible women so much luck! — Washington Post (if you need an unlocked version of this story, click here)
Nancy Pelosi
Y’all. We have GOT to talk about Nancy Pelosi. If you don’t already know what I’m going to say, please read the above essay again, I’ll wait. …. Okay, you’re back. Great. Here’s the thing: The Patriarchy is totally okay with your disdain for Nancy Pelosi. The Patriarchy also doesn’t like Nancy Pelosi. The Patriarchy thinks Nancy Pelosi is too experienced and too shrill and too opinionated and too effective. “We as women are too often looking the other way at these accusations or joining in the chants ourselves.” The Patriarchy would prefer that you breathe new life into the House by nominating someone with less experience, less empathy, fewer opinions, more y-chromosomes. The Patriarchy doesn’t like women in power. The Patriarchy is scared of them. It’s good to make the Patriarchy scared. Do the damn thing. Now is not the time for infighting. Grow up, pull it together. It is not time to let the Patriarchy win again. — Washington Post (if you ned an unlocked version of this story, click here)
Monica Lewinsky
Monica Lewinsky is back in the public eye, and this time she is driving the bus. In her latest piece of writing, Lewinsky explains why she chose to participate in a new docuseries called The Clinton Affair, and Monica Lewinsky is wise. Oh is she wise! Our society, she posits, does not allow victims to define their own victimhood. Oh, no. Society, “like a Greek chorus,” plays a huge part in defining who gets to be a victim. Was she too slutty? No Victimhood for her! Was she too willing? No Victimhood for her! There’s so much more to this essay. Its a good one. Very much worth your time. — Vanity Fair
Donna Zuckerberg
Do not ever let anyone tell you that being a Classics major is useless. Donna Zuckerberg is an editor of the online journal of Classical scholarship, Eidolon. An article on Stoicism saw a spike in traffic. Zuckerberg decided to find out why. What she found is a shady world populated by pick-up artists, incels, MRAs, and others who turn Classical literature to justify their twisted philosophy of cruelty, rape, misogyny, and dehumanization of the modern woman. “These men are weaponizing ancient Greece and Rome in service of their agenda and reshaping what that history means.” — The Guardian
Tricia Griffith
You’ve heard of Tim Cook. And you’ve heard of Jeff Bezos. You might have even heard of Satya Nadella. But do you know who Tricia Griffith is? If you don’t, that’s okay. But you’ll probably be hearing more about her soon. Griffith is the CEO of Progressive. Yep, she’s an insurance executive. So why am I mentioning her name in the same rarified air as Cook, Bezos and Nadella? Because Tricia Griffith is doing something remarkable, she’s helping Progressive grow, and with gusto. Gusto enough in fact, that Griffith was chosen by Fortune as their Businessperson of the Year. Year of the Woman, indeed. — Fortune
Escape the Room!
Once upon a time I was basically coerced into going to one of those escape room things as a “team building” exercise at work. I went, but it was grudgingly. Little was I to know how much freaking fun it was going to be! I left exhilarated and, well, yes, indeed, I did actually like the people on my team a little bit more. This is all probably why I was enraptured by this profile of Ginger Flesher-Sonnier, a onetime math teacher who now owns a string of the most profitable escape rooms in the United States. Flesher-Sonnier obsesses over every last detail in her rooms, crafting elaborate challenges in beautiful, realistic settings. I came away from the profile thinking that Flesher-Sonnier’s way of crafting and running a business is markedly different from how many men would do it, and that that is part of the secret to her runaway success.
If you take away one theme from this newsletter, I hope that has something to do with women needing to think and act and govern and do business authentically, that for many of us, the key to success will be abandoning our attempts at making the Patriarchy want to hire us. The Patriarchy isn’t here for us, but the coven is. Gather round!
The Woman Crush Weekly is the newsletter of the Pallas Network. Our goal is to highlight the amazing women around the world changing the game. If you feel so motivated, please send along your favorite stories about women changing the world. My inbox is always open: ann@pallasnetwork.com xo — Ann
Originally sent as The Woman Crush Weekly, № 27
