Big Girls Don't Cry
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Rebecca Traister was raised outside Philadelphia, where she attended Quaker high school, and then went on to major in American Studies at Northwestern University. She started out in the media as an entry level assistant atTalkmagazine, and then as a fact checker at theNew York Observer, where she soon
… More »Rebecca Traister was raised outside Philadelphia, where she attended Quaker high school, and then went on to major in American Studies at Northwestern University. She started out in the media as an entry level assistant atTalkmagazine, and then as a fact checker at theNew York Observer, where she soon became the most unwilling gossip columnist in the history of New York nightlife, before reporting on the film industry in the city. In 2003, she moved to Salon.com, where she had been hired as the Life section's staff writer. She wound up writing so many stories from a feminist point of view, that pretty soon her beat simply became about women. Traister covered the 2008 campaign from a feminist (and personal) perspective, receiving a huge response to her pieces on Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama, the media's coverage of the candidates, and the role of women within the media. She's written for a range of national publications, includingElle,theNew York Times, Vogue,and theNation. Traister has appeared on CNN, CNNHeadline News,MSNBC, NPR'sBrian Lehrer Show, and other TV and radio. She speaks regularly at prominent events, including on panels at the EMILY's List annual gathering and at the Democratic National Convention. She lives in Brooklyn with her boyfriend and two cats.
« Lessthe election that changed everything for American women
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Add a CommentI’ve read a lot of books about the 2008 presidential election but none represented my feelings about it as well as this book does. For feminists, this book is like a look inside our hearts and minds. The author writes about the political events of 2008 but she is also not reticent about sharing her opinions and feelings, which vacillated. She started out supporting John Edwards and disliking Hillary Clinton but transitioned to admiring Hillary a great deal and supporting her candidacy (as I did) and then finally came to love Obama (as did I). As the author says, younger progressive women tend to have a blind confidence that a woman will eventually become president in their lifetime. Therefore, they were unperturbed about voting for Obama this time around. But for many of the 2nd wave feminists (now middle-aged), Hillary Clinton was probably our only chance to see a woman elected president. Understandably our passion about her candidacy ran deep and wide. The extreme reactions of voters and the media to Hillary Clinton are amply discussed. Hillary has been quoted as saying that she is a blank slate in the sense that people react to her from their own prejudices and attitudes that are independent of her. The vitriol directed at Hillary was so intense that it prompted many women to jump down from their spots on the fence and run to her defense. In the process of talking about Clinton, Obama (Barack and Michelle), Palin, Couric, Steinem and all the rest, the author writes insightfully abut our culture’s persistent ambivalence about women, (especially older women), about feminism and what it is and isn’t, about racism and how it lives on, and about white men with power who don’t want (or, more rarely, are willing) to share power with women and people of color. The book is excellent. Don't just read it; buy it.
"Rebecca Traister's so-very-smart and lively book about the 2008 presidential campaign, called Big Girls Don't Cry, teases out how our reigning cultural narratives about femininity and "playing nice" came to wield so much power during the campaign and, finally, in the voting booth." Maureen Corrigan's Favorite Books Of 2010