Essays from The Persistent | Covering women for a change

An illustration of white and grey clouds.

Media

The Case For Drowning Out the News

Social expectations and democracy dictate that it’s our duty to tune in to the news. It’s ruining our health.

A person's wrist sporti a friendship bracelet with a message of support for Vice President Harris.

Persisting Through Politics

‘Unity Is Key,’ They Said. Then Came The Kamala Zooms

White Dudes for Harris, Black Women for Kamala—identity politics is raising millions of dollars for the presumptive Democratic nominee. It’s a strategy no established politico would have recommended.

A collage illustration of Karachi and a woman waiting along the route for the Pink Bus.

World

Inside Karachi’s Women-Only Pink Bus

A new women-only bus route is designed to combat the sexual harassment prevalent on Karachi’s public transit system. The bus is clean, spacious—and unreliable.

A blue and grey collage of women doing various unpaid labor tasks including cleaning, serving food and grocery shopping.

Feminism

Why I’m Saying Yes to (Some) Unpaid Labor

Resisting unpaid labor is a feminist move. In the real world, it’s complicated.

Detail from a work by Jessa Fairbrother showing a woman who appears pregnant holding her belly.

Culture

When Words Fail On Infertility, There is Art

Infertility, so long hidden from view, is finally finding a spotlight in various contemporary art forms.

Illustration of a man cooking at a stove while a woman works at her laptop.

Relationships

The Day I Walked Out of The Kitchen

My choice is to leave all planning, preparation and worrying about food to my husband. That feels like a radical feminist act.

Six brightly-colored panels show different women staring ahead.

Work

Yes, Women Are Ambitious. Why Is That Such a Surprise?

Employers fall back on the tired old trope that “women lack ambition” in an attempt to paper over what’s really wrong.

An abstract illustration of a woman gazing into a book.

Culture

Men Still Aren’t Reading Women’s Books. Can the Women’s Prize Help?

The author Kate Mosse co-founded the Women’s Prize for Fiction to shrink the gender gap in publishing. Twenty-nine years on, she says her work is far from finished.

An artist's rendering of a woman in a red dress with a set of giant handcuffs behind her.

Justice

The Complicated Relationship Between Justice and Gender

How stereotypes and societal tropes have shaped the trials of women wrongfully convicted of murder.

An illustration of a woman laying on a blanket in the grass with her baby boy.

Motherhood

When Did Boy Mom Culture Become So Problematic?

There’s science to back up the idea that parenting boys is different—but social media has made it weird.

The 1917 painting by Laura Knight, shows a woman in an orange dress standing on rocks, looking down at the ocean.

Art

Below the Surface of Women’s Art, Centuries of #MeToo, Misogyny

Viewers who take the time to look closely at Tate Britain's "Now You See Us" will uncover a great deal about the plight of professional women artists over the last 400 years.

An illustration made of black and white cutouts of a woman's body, reconfigured in a tangle.

Sex education

School Sex Ed Left Me Feeling Isolated. That’s a Safety Issue.

The sexual disempowerment of disabled women crops up again and again. It starts with non-inclusive sex ed in school.

An illustration of a woman wearing a jumpsuit, with her hands in her pockets, looking at art in a gallery.

Culture

How Everyday Sexism Is Sewn Into Our Clothes

Pockets should be a given—as essential as elastic in our underwear or buttons on our coats, writes the author Josie Cox.

An animation still of the popular cartoon dog, Bluey, with her parents and sister by a tree.

Parenting

Bluey Has Taken the Easy Way Out On Infertility

Those going through infertility are owed our compassion. Why can’t fiction mirror real life?

A conceptual illustration of a black woman with her hands on her hips. A silhouette of a woman climbs stairs on her dress.

Worklife

The Relentless Art of Salary Negotiation

Execs at a TV station promised to "do better" on women's salaries. Why was it so hard for one woman to close the $30,000 gap?