Writing by Topic: Gender

On the Vault

“Picky Bosses’ Pet Peeves About Secretaries, in a 1945 List” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, November 2, 2016)
“When Not To Get Married: Some Late-19th-Century Advice” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, July 15, 2016)
“Poignant Petitions From 19th-Century Mothers Hoping to Surrender Illegitimate Children” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, April 6, 2016)
“Exercise Advice for Flappers, in Gorgeous 1920s Prints” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, February 8, 2016)
“Listen to Studs Terkel Interview Gloria Steinem on the 10th Anniversary of Ms. Magazine” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, January 22, 2016)
“Amelia Earhart’s Cautiously Optimistic 1933 Advice to a Female Pilot” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, January 20, 2016)
“A Striking Artifact of Casual Misogyny from the Early 20th Century” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, November 2, 2015)
“Should You Be a Wife or a Career Woman? Take This 1950s Magazine Quiz” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, July 24, 2015)
“A Tragic Catalog of 100 Mostly Miserable 19th-Century Marriages” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, March 3, 2015)
“A 1964 Document Tallying Penalties for Sodomy and Fornication Across the United States” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, February 25, 2015)
“Form-Letter Valentines for 19th-Century Lovers” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, February 13, 2015)
“An 1864 Letter to American Women, Rallying Support for a Huge Anti-Slavery Petition Drive” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, February 11, 2015)
“An Anti-Suffrage Book from 1910, Mocking ‘Baby’ Activists” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, February 4, 2015)
“How to Employ Women in Government Jobs: Postwar Advice Drawn from the American Experience” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, December 1, 2014)
“Gently Sexy Boudoir Stereographs For Use in Victorian Parlors” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, November 14, 2014)
“The Colorful Quilt Squares Chilean Women Used to Tell the Story of Life Under Pinochet” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, September 10, 2014)
“An 1849 Guide to the Philadelphia Brothel Scene” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, September 8, 2014)
“19th-Century Classified Ads for Abortifacients and Contraceptives” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, August 6, 2014)
“The Black List: Public Shaming of the ‘Lewd and Scandalous’ in 18th-Century London” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, July 11, 2014)
“The Romantic, Hopeful French Pictorial Postcards of World War I” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, June 20, 2014)
“1909 Advice for Lady Motorists, In Pictures” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, May 20, 2014)
“Late-19th-Century Vice Map Names and Shames Saloons and Brothels Around the White House” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, May 14, 2014)
“A Brooklyn Woman’s Colorful Quilt, Illustrating Her Experience of the Civil War” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, March 18, 2014)
“The Exquisite Wistfulness of 19th-Century Vegetarian Personal Ads” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, March 10, 2014)
“Susan B. Anthony’s Indictment for Voting While Female” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, March 6, 2014)
“Common 19th-Century Arguments Against Women’s Suffrage, Neatly Refuted” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, February 12, 2014)
“Shirley Temple’s Earliest Movies Are Really Hard to Watch” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, February 11, 2014)
“Gender-Ratio Map Shows Where the Men Were In 1870” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, December 9, 2013)
“Life Advice for Young Men That Went Viral in the 1850s” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, December 4, 2013)
“‘Having a Baby’ in 1942: One Couple’s Utterly Charming Homemade Documentary” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, December 3, 2013)
“In A Captivating Panoramic Display, 1920s ‘Bathing Girls’ Show How Quickly Fashions Changed” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, November 14, 2013)
“An Illustrated Descent into a ‘White Slave Hell’ in 1910 Chicago” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, November 8, 2013)
“Government to Employers During WWII: ‘You’re Going To Hire Women. Here’s How to Deal'” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, October 10, 2013)
“Eight Types of 18th-Century Lady Drunks (Some NSFW)” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, September 27, 2013)
“Tracking Feminism, From Inside Nixon’s Administration” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, August 22, 2013)
“The Band of American Women Who Tried to Stop Andrew Jackson’s Native American Removal Policy” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, August 14, 2013)
“Fifty Years Before Boondocks There Was Patty-Jo n Ginger” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, August 13, 2013)
“A Suffragette Describes What It Felt Like to Be Force-Fed” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, July 17, 2013)
“An Invitation to New York’s First-Ever Gay Pride Parade” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, June 27, 2013)
“A 17th-Century Sex Manual That’s Legitimately Raunchy” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, June 26, 2013)
“Watch One of the First Female Standups Own the Room on Live TV” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, June 10, 2013)
“A ’70s Newsletter for Feminist Men” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, May 13, 2013)
“Do You Have the Right Personality to Become a Secretary in 1959? Take This Quiz” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, May 8, 2013)
“An 1817 Cheat Sheet for Nervous Dancers” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, April 25, 2013)
“The ‘Grecian Bend’: The Most Preposterous Ladies’ Fashion Trend of the 1860s” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, April 3, 2013)
“The 17th-Century Remixed Bible That Charmed A King” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, April 1, 2013)
“Stitching the Solar System: Science as Needlepoint, 1811” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, March 20, 2013)
“Vintage Infographics: Where Women Worked in 1920” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, March 11, 2013)
“How the Boy Scouts Became the Heroes of the 1913 Parade for Women’s Suffrage” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, March 4, 2013)
“When Valentines Were Really, Really Mean” (Slate‘s The Vault blog, February 13, 2013)

Everywhere Else

“The Handsy Boss and the Sexy Secretary” (Slate, December 19, 2017)
Peggy Noonan’s Willful Blindness (Slate, December 1, 2017)
“We’ve Got The ’70s-Style Rage. Now We Need the ’70s-Style Feminist Social Analysis” (Slate, November 20, 2017)
“How Predators Take Advantage of Photo Ops to Assault Women” (Slate, October 27, 2017)
“A New Study Looks at What Becoming a Mother Does to Your Self-Esteem” (Slate, July 6, 2017)
“Your Child Care Conundrum Is An Anti-Communist Plot” (Slate, June 14, 2017)
“Bad News: We’re Sexist” (Slate‘s XX Factor, June 7, 2017)
“America Has Always Seen Ambitious Women As Unhealthy” (Slate, September 16, 2016)
“Sorry, Twitter: Male Self-Citation in Academia Isn’t Really ‘Mansplaining'” (Slate‘s Double X blog, August 2, 2016)
“Toward a New Theory of the Bad Dad and Husband” (Slate, April 28, 2016)
“How ‘She Just Wants Attention’ Became America’s Hottest Sexist Insult” (Slate, April 4, 2016)
“Show & Tell: 1920s Cigarette Cards Depicting Flappers Dressed as Butterflies” (Mental Floss online, February 26, 2016)
“Show & Tell: A Map of Matrimony” (Mental Floss online, February 12, 2016)
“Is History Written By Men, About Men?” (with Andrew Kahn) (Slate, January 6, 2016)
“Thousands of Women Ran for Office Before They Could Vote” (Slate, April 14, 2015)
“The Pen” (A revisionist history of America’s oldest women’s prison—written by current prisoners). (Slate, March 22, 2015)
“Lock Up Your Wives!” (on marriage counseling before feminism) (Aeon Magazine, September 9, 2014)
“‘Unclaimed Treasures of Science'” (Slate, July 13, 2014)
“The Pre-Pregnancy Contract” (Slate Double X, July 10, 2014)
“An Uncommon Household: The history of an early American same-sex marriage” (Boston Globe Ideas section, June 13, 2014)
“In A Different Sea” (Songbirds and Satellites, November 9, 2011)
“‘Tree So Horny’: What Happens When Sex Sells Environmentalism?” [PDF] (Bitch Magazine, Fall 2006)
“Student Counsel” (interview with activist Shelby Knox) [PDF] (Bitch Magazine, Summer 2005)
“The Four-Eyed Monster: Why Smart Girls Scare Reporters” [PDF] (Bitch Magazine, Spring 2004)
“Flick Chicks” (on girls who love “Lord of the Rings”) [PDF] (The New Republic, online, December 19, 2003)
“The Double Lives They Lead” [PDF] (The New Republic, online; October 22, 2003)

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