My top posts of 2023, plus the posts I wish had been more popular
I'd love to hear your favorite post!
Happy New Year’s Eve! I’m looking back and reflecting on my work over the past year, so join me!
2023 was a huge year for this little newsletter. After 15 years as a full-time science and health writer, I’ve made writing about feminism on Substack my full-time job. My amazing, insightful readers have made this possible, and I hope to repay the favor by continuing to offer content that inspires you, makes you think, and encourages you to ditch assholes of every variety.
Below, find my most popular (as measured by pageviews) posts of the year. I’m also sharing some pieces that I really liked, but that didn’t get the attention I had hoped.
I’d love to hear from you about my work:
What was your favorite piece of the year?
Do you remember which piece brought you to me?
What would you like to see me write about in the new year?
I’m opening comments to everyone, not just paid subscribers, so please chime in.
Also, I’m running a sale on Substack memberships through the end of the day tomorrow.
My most popular pieces of 2023
The pieces I wish had done better
The core insight of my work is that mothers’ issues are critical to feminism, that feminism has ignored mothers’ issues for too long, and that patriarchy loves to pretend that oppressing and excluding mothers doesn’t matter. Everyone should care about mothers, but feminism continues to have a motherhood problem.
So I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised as the outpouring of rage in response to Banning children from public spaces is inherently sexist. This is my most controversial piece to date, and the only one that has consistently gotten me threats and unsubscribes. I stand by every argument I made. Until we stop foisting almost all domestic labor on women, arbitrarily banning children (rather than bad behavior) from public spaces will make public life less accessible to women. Fight me. IDGAF.
Dealing with people who talk too much is a close runner up in terms of angry feedback. Many people suggested that it was ableist, or targeted neurodivergent folks. To some extent, I see their point. But as a neurodivergent person myself, I had a very specific type of person in mind: the white, neurotypical dude who thinks that all women just love to hear what he has to say.
One of the challenges of writing for a wide audience is that often, you’re really writing for a small subset, or talking about a narrow group. It’s hard to thread that needle, and it’s something I both continue to struggle with and hope to do better in the coming year.
Why nothing works to bring about household equality did ok—about average. But it’s a summation of my core argument, which is that household inequality is a form of patriarchal oppression, not an individual problem with individual solutions. So I wish it had been a bit more popular.
Blaming women for their reactions to bad behavior similarly got middling pageviews. But to my mind, it’s one of the most important weapons men use. It’s why they pretend punching a woman is the same as a woman shoving a man out of the way. It’s how they get away with labeling exhausted and demoralized wives as “nagging” and “frigid.” And I wish more men had read that piece.
There's way too many pieces you've written that I love so it's hard to pick. A few: your daughter doesn't need you to tell her she's pretty, what men really think about women, what a good marriage looks like, here's what the grieving people in your life want you to know. These pieces are some of my most favorite you've written. I think the first piece I read by you was about a woman asking you for advice because she wasn't attracted to her husband because he had gained weight. I loved your response and I just read more and more pieces after I saw how kind and just you were in addressing social issues with that question. I'm so so happy and grateful for your writing. I look forward to more of your pieces. I wish for a kind, loving, healthy, and peaceful 2024 for you and your family, Zawn and for all the kind, loving people in your readership.
I joined your paid subscription this summer. Someone somewhere shared your post about "why postpartum depression is the dad's fault', and I was like yes!yes!yes! Shared it with all my friends and they said I was ignoring thr science of hormones hahah, anyway after that I've reading your work and love your matter of fact way of talking!