From New York Magazine

There are times in this life when the only person you want to read is Rebecca Traister. One of those times was July 24, 2022, when the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to an abortion. At that lowest of low moments, when it seemed like the battle had finally been well and truly lost, Traister was able to channel the despair of so many while giving them a reason to once more put their shoulder to the wheel — to work toward “some finer tomorrow, distant but always possible.” Why was this any sort of consolation in the face of so much real-world ruin? I’m not entirely sure, but it was. To see one’s own raw, roiling emotions with greater clarity and made dignified — that is one of the reasons that I, at any rate, have always clicked on Traister. 

Rebecca Traister

This reflective genius is particularly salient given the subjects Traister writes about: what we could broadly call “women’s issues,” a phrase she hates because it implies that women’s concerns are somehow different from human ones. To this day, men tend to dominate the discussion of politics and its thematic cousin, power, and for women there is not often a lot of themselves to see in these discussions. Since joining New York as a writer-at-large in 2015, Traister has offered a different sort of mirror to readers, whether she is writing about Hillary Clinton (a figure she understands better than pretty much anyone), Harvey Weinstein, Katie Couric, Andrew Cuomo, or Stacey Abrams. Her latest feature for New York is on the joyous plot to elect Kamala Harris, in which she constructs an alternative narrative of the last eight years that places the efforts of women front and center: to avenge Clinton’s defeat to Trump in 2016; to win back the abortion rights that have been lost; and to at long last put a woman in the White House. If and when that happens, I know who I’ll want to read first. 

—Ryu Spaeth, features editor

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