Loved this conversation with @josiecox.bsky.social about the economic and cultural dynamics transforming women’s sports. Plus: @thepersistent.bsky.social commissioned a watercolor! www.thepersistent.com/tag/women-yo...

Actually we didn't win a Webby... We won TWO Webbys! Thanks so much to The Webbys for awarding The Persistent with the award for Best Independent Publisher, and thanks to all of YOU for voting for us for the People's Voice Winner in the same category!

We're nominated for two Webbys — and need your help to win our first! In order to give us a shot at the People’s Voice Award, please cast a vote for The Persistent! It takes about 20 seconds.

Women can thrive at work if they feel adequately supported during menopause and perimenopause, says Lauren Smith Brody.

My favourite publication to write for, @thepersistent.bsky.social, has been nominated for a Webby! We'd love your vote in the People's Choice category. It's frustrating and fiddly because you have to sign up - but it'll be worth it to see the joy on our little faces if we win. Vote below.

This morning, I get real with @thepersistent.bsky.social about what it's really like to be a Black woman in #economics, why one Harvard professor called me a “wild card”, and how building a legacy beyond myself has completely changed my life. #blacksky #news #womenhistorymonth

The economist @itsafronomics.blacksky.app on being underestimated in academia, and why Black women pay more for their hair products and their homes — but get paid less at work.

Researchers analyzed data from more than 13,000 parents who... had their first child after the first year of their doctoral studies. Eight years after the birth of a first child, women were 29% less likely to remain employed at a university.

Ambition: It's a taboo topic for women. But why? Career and leadership coach Phoebe Gavin encourages you to ask yourself what ambition means to you, as well as why you define it that way.

Researchers have discovered that girls read more than boys during school vacations - which might help to explain why they outperform boys academically.

“We were treated like second-class citizens undeserving of power, status, and the state control and surveillance that come with them. So women were better positioned to explore new ways of survival when the old system crumbled.”

📢 VOTE FOR THE PERSISTENT IN THE WEBBYS! We've been nominated for Best Independent Publisher at The Webby Awards this year, and need your vote to win the People's Voice award!

It's time to explore how to (re)discover who you are outside of work. Career coach Phoebe Gavin will join us to discuss “identity enmeshment," the idea that you are your job and your job is you, on Friday, March 27th, at 11 PM ET. Register and submit your questions: events.zoom.us/ev/Al20-sgzU...

From Autumn Durald Arkapaw's Best Cinematography award to Amy Madigan's win at 75, this year's Academy Awards showed hope for women in Hollywood.

A new ranking of the most-cited U.S. legal scholars shows women dominating the top 10 for the first time.

Gen Z men are particularly staunch in their defense of traditional gender roles, despite evidence that women’s rights are eroding globally.

"Virtue signaling is real and everywhere, especially during Women’s History Month," @josiecox.bsky.social writes.

Whether you’re organizing a protest or just dancing around your living room, put this playlist on in the background for an instant burst of empowerment – and joy. We could all use some more of both.

Women make up around 1/2 of the world’s population but still hold no more than 1/5th of all leadership positions, according to a sweeping new research report.

What does the bombing of Iran mean for Iranian women? The British-Iranian peace advocate @sanambna.bsky.social asks if it could destroy years of work to improve their lives in conversation with @clairecozens.bsky.social. www.thepersistent.com/iran-war-wom...

Pleased, proud, privileged—all the words—to have this piece in The Persistent today.

There was a time when I thought that greeting myself in the mirror and saying, "Hey, girl. I love you," was my middle-aged right. It felt good, writes @deniseschipani.bsky.social. But it doesn’t anymore.

Five years since Sarah Everard was kidnapped, raped, then murdered. She was wearing an anorak, and walking along a well-lit route: the things we're meant to do to stay safe. But her parents couldn't see her face to say goodbye, because her killer had set fire to her body. How much has changed?

"Identity enmeshment" is the idea that you are your job and your job is you. You can disentangle your identity from your job in small, steady steps.

In the four years since Russia invaded Ukraine, 14,000 women and girls have been injured. Now, the UN is warning that with funding for women's organizations running out, women and girls face a "triple threat".

An interesting look at the history of name changing customs & laws and the "battle over women’s surnames," from @kathleenedavis.bsky.social in @thepersistent.bsky.social: "The tradition of a woman changing her last name from her father’s to her husband’s is part of an English law called coverture."

In my latest for @thepersistent.bsky.social, I argue that the French government's decision to write to 29-year-olds to "combat" infertility misses the point, because the decision to have a child isn't just a medical issue, it's a social one, too. www.thepersistent.com/france-ferti...

"’These delays can compound over time to affect [women’s] career trajectories,’ Cassidy Sugimoto, an info scientist at the GA Inst of Tech who was not involved in the study, told ‘The Scientist’ in an interview about the findings. ‘When production slows [...] visibility slows with it,’ she added.”🧪

After 20-odd years of hiding my deep hatred of Cathy and her stupid boyfriend, writing this felt good.

On the first day of Trump's second term, he ordered that transgender, nonbinary, and intersex identities would no longer be recognized by the federal government. That has made it much harder to track the well-being, needs, and disparities affecting LGBT communities, writes @josiecox.bsky.social.

Wuthering Heights is a dull book about cold, bored people finding new ways to torture each other, writes @emmahaslett.bsky.social. At least Emerald Fennell's movie realizes how camp it is.

When a woman academic is the lead author, the peer review process takes almost 15% longer, writes @josiecox.bsky.social.

The French government's decision to write to 29 year-olds to warn them about their fertility misses the point, writes @diane2v.bsky.social. The decision to have a child isn't just a medical issue, it's a social one, too.

“Move fast and break things” has long been a battle cry for the testosterone-fueled world of tech startups, writes @josiecox.bsky.social. Now, research suggests that one of the things that breaks when startups move too fast, is a commitment to gender diversity.

'I was happy my identity wasn’t based on good looks, but rather, on a sense of humor and smarts,' writes Laura Fraser. 'Deep down, though, I wanted to be pretty.'

Lindsey Vonn proved this weekend that she wasn’t going to live by shoulds or coulds, writes @josiecox.bsky.social. Her story is about the deeply personal calculus of knowing your limits and your tolerances; it’s about the radical act of deciding for yourself what you want and what you can risk.

Some 42% of women feel worse off today than they did a year ago, and 57% say it's harder to raise a child now than it was this time last year. Some 43% of women - and well over half of Black women - say they have lost rights under Trump.

An estimated 69m women in the U.S. have changed their last name. Under the SAVE Act, that could very well mean they can't vote.

In India, "shame-laden" Victorian laws made it virtually impossible to buy sex toys. But one enterprising influencer spotted the potential of online shopping.

The Oscar-nominated short film Jane Austen's Period Drama is a period drama about actual periods. It does feel revolutionary, and it does feel brave, writes Gabriella Griffith. But should it? www.thepersistent.com/jane-austens...

Gisèle Pelicot's son, David, has teamed up with UN Women France (ONU Femmes France) to underscore a critical point: 92% of sexual violence against women in France is perpetrated by men. Women cannot put an end to rape on their own. www.thepersistent.com/david-pelico...

When I complain about America’s politics, which I do frequently, people tell me I’m lucky because I “can just leave whenever I want,” writes @josiecox.bsky.social. But loving a place means facing the parts of it that disappoint and upset us. www.thepersistent.com/what-it-mean...

Billionaire wealth hit a historic high in 2025, with male tech executives leading the way. www.thepersistent.com/the-rich-kee...

The practice of a wife taking her husband's name after marriage stems from a long-extinct English law known as coverture, which made women the property of their fathers, then husbands. So why do 80% of American women still take their husbands' last names? www.thepersistent.com/feminism-cha...

As NYC nurses go on strike, a survey shows under-staffing and over-work has led nurses around the U.S. to feel overwhelmed and exhausted. www.thepersistent.com/nurses-strik...

Whitney White says directing the Broadway play Liberation showed her that modern feminists are risking less than their 1970s forebears. "They weren't just liking things on Instagram." www.thepersistent.com/broadway-lib...

What I Was Wearing, a cartoon by @aubreyhirsch.bsky.social.

101 years ago this week, America's first woman governor was elected. But Nellie Tayloe Ross had never had ambitions of political leadership. Instead, this opportunity arrived on the heels of grief. www.thepersistent.com/who-was-nell...

Couple in here from me! Including: - The story of Jane Goodall's sexist boss - Why gentle parenting experts are just three misogynists in a raincoat - What AI's obsession with beauty is doing to us

These are the best stories published by The Persistent in 2025, as picked by our editor @francescadonner.bsky.social. www.thepersistent.com/favorite-sto...