Here’s something that’s been bothering me for months now. So I decided to keep track.
The Atlantic Monthly, a magazine that styles itself as one of the nation’s more thoughtful periodicals, has steadfastly avoided running a major feature by a woman writer since the beginning of the year. I’m not joking. And I’m not over-reacting. I have the past four months – that’s the past six months of editorial planning, a half-year, a substantial amount of time – sitting on my desk. I saved them for just this reason.
None of the magazine printed since mid-December carry any substantial written, by-lined contributions by women. What does appear is brief, usually in the back-of-the book critic’s section or in “The Agenda” at the front. And to add insult to injury, the magazine’s one featured female writer, Sandra Tsing Loh, a self-styled celebrity Mom who you may know from NPR, has dwelled for two months in a row on her kids, on her kids’ schools and books about women like her. What’s worse, the headline on this month’s piece makes a joke about schools and “breast-milk-curdling.” Dudes, when your kids are ready for school, most of them have stopped breast feeding.
One hopes.