I write this anniversary edition of Rachroobear Recommends with a heavy heart as the Russian invasion rages on in Ukraine. I share these recommendations not to be callous, but as a reminder of the complicated lives and stories that continue to be lived each day around the world.
The year was 2011 or 2012, and I was at the gym, (a place I hardly remember today from my 2022 Miss Havisham vantage point). I’d just showered and was making my way toward the exit when a man in his seventies or thereabouts stopped me. Happy International Women’s Day, he said.
And thus, I present my introduction to International Women’s Day, from a man. I was rather caught off guard…like, Sir? Thank you I guess.
I mean, I’d never heard of this alleged holiday, and I wasn’t entirely sure if this man was wishing every female-presenting person a happy holiday or just me, but it was also sort of sweet that he’d adopted the holiday before I had.
Like most “holidays,” International Woman’s Day is now used as an excuse for corporations to pay online lip service to women without actually compensating us fairly, but back in 2011 I was still a college student in a college town who spent her free time going to the gym and writing a now-defunct blog (RIP, IYKYK), and I was honestly just kind of flattered that anyone even saw me as a grown ass woman.
Cynicism aside, I do appreciate the way that the news cycle around the holiday (and Women’s History Month more broadly) amplifies women’s stories, even if only for a month. (I tried to set my cynicism aside. I really did.)
In honor of this holiday (as well as in celebration of this newsletter’s one year of existence!), I’ve put together a collection of articles by women and a list of a few of my favorite books by women, though, if I’m being honest, much of what I ordinarily share here is written by women. Ma Nishtana.
Happy Reading!
—RJZ
Reading: The most beautiful meditation on stuttering | A love letter to yams | “Worrying About My Parents’ Safety Is a Permanent State” | Why some trauma victims make false confessions | The pain of friendships that dissolve (and friends you envy) | “How Women Forced Ukraine to Welcome Them Into the Military”
Eating: halloumi tacos with fancy sauces | butternut squash because tis still the damn szn apparently?
Publishing: For Poets & Writers magazine, I wrote about the movement to get translators’ names on the covers of books, the need for better compensation for translators, and the importance of highlighting underrepresented voices in the field of translation.
Recommended Books:
* Note: My recommendations are mine alone, but if you do purchase the via the links below, I make a small commission via bookshop.org. Better yet, why not buy them from your local independent book store?! *
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
A beautiful novel about the complexities of womanhood, relationships, and families
Want Me by Tracy Clark-Flory
A juicy combination of memoir and cultural commentary on sex and power
Intimacies by Katie Kitamura
A suspenseful novel about language, relationships, and war crimes
Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller
Part memoir, part scientific history, part biography of the sketchy first president of Stanford
How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
A philosophical meditation on attention, technology, and ecology
Until next time!