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* At least for now. If you’re reading this in the future and we’ve figured out human cloning, god help us.
Notes
PREFACE
flip Mulvey’s male gaze: Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Screen, 1975, asu.edu/courses/fms504/total-readings/mulvey-visualpleasure.pdf.
the decision was not mine: Deborah Copaken, “My So-Called ‘Post-Feminist’ Life in Arts and Letters,” The Nation, April 9, 2013, thenation.com/article/archive/my-so-called-post-feminist-life-arts-and-letters/.
TWO: LUNCH WITH NORA, FREDS
minus a clitoris: Julia Unteregger, “Yes, This Is a Sexist Term and Here Is Why…,” TEDx Vienna, April 6, 2019, browse.tedxvienna.at/blog/2019/04/06/yes-this-is-a-sexist-term-and-here-is-why/.
average of sixty-five minutes: Laura Kiesel, “Women and pain: Disparities in experience and treatment,” Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard Medical School, October 9, 2017, health.harvard.edu/blog/women-and-pain-disparities-in-experience-and-treatment-2017100912562.
only half as likely: “Researcher says women less likely to get painkillers,” UPI archives, March 11, 1989, upi.com/Archives/1989/03/11/Researcher-says-women-less-likely-to-get-painkillers/2047605595600/.
7 on a scale of 10: Diane E. Hoffmann, Anita J. Tarzian, “The Girl Who Cried Pain: A Bias Against Women in the Treatment of Pain,” The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 2001, ssrn.com/abstract=383803.
“almost as bad as a heart attack”: Olivia Goldhill, “Period pain can be ‘almost as bad as a heart attack.’ Why aren’t we researching how to treat it?,” Quartz, February 15, 2016, qz.com/611774/period-pain-can-be-as-bad-as-a-heart-attack-so-why-arent-we-researching-how-to-treat-it/.
trial of sildenafil citrate: R. Dmitrovic, A. R. Kunselman, R. S. Legro, “Sildenafil citrate in the treatment of pain in primary dysmenorrhea: a randomized controlled trial,” Human Reproduction, Volume 28, Issue 11, November 2013, academic.oup.com/humrep/article/28/11/2958/628626.
when I first read that in a book: Caroline Criado Perez, Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (New York: Abrams, 2019).
“did not see dysmenorrhea”: Ibid.
“men don’t care about”: Radhika Sanghani, “Period pain can feel ‘as bad as a heart attack’—so why is it being ignored?,” The Telegraph, September 6, 2017, telegraph.co.uk/women/life/period-pain-can-feel-bad-heart-attack-ignored/.
Nora’s “A Few Words About Breasts”: Nora Ephron, “A Few Words About Breasts,” Esquire, May 1, 1972, classic.esquire.com/article/1972/5/1/a-few-words-about-breasts.
FIVE: EMPATHY
needs become misaligned: Daniel Schöttle, Peer Briken, et al., “Sexuality in autism: hypersexual and paraphilic behavior in women and men with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder,” Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, Volume 19, Issue 4, December 2017, pp. 381–393, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5789215/.
“too tired for an encounter”: Ashley Stanford, Asperger Syndrome and Long-Term Relationships (London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2014).
SIX: ESCAPE
A few weeks after 9/11: Deborah Copaken, “I am very sad because my heart is bleeding,” O, The Oprah Magazine, March 15, 2002, deborahcopaken.com/#/essaysjournalism/.
SEVEN: LUNCH WITH NORA, E.A.T.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote a profile: Malcolm Gladwell, “The Formula,” The New Yorker, October 9, 2006, newyorker.com/magazine/2006/10/16/the-formula.
Dad later wrote on: Richard Copaken, “Plumbing the Depths,” Happy Dick is Sick, August 17, 2008, happydickissick.com/2008/08/17/plumbing-the-depths/.
Couldn’t he divine that: Deborah Copaken, “La Vie en Rose, the Takeout Version,” The New York Times, April 15, 2007, nytimes.com/2007/04/15/fashion/15love.html.
EIGHT: WHERE’S THE HUSBAND?
an accurate 3D model: Minna Salami, “This is a 3D model of a clitoris—and the start of a sexual revolution,” The Guardian, September 15, 2016, theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/15/3d-model-clitoris-sexual-revolution-sex-education-womens-sexuality.
NHS would allow me: “Overview—Hysterectomy,” NHS, nhs.uk/conditions/hysterectomy/.
get up to four: Gillian Harvey, “My Operation in France: Hysterectomy,” The Connexion, February 21, 2018, connexionfrance.com/Practical/Health/My-operation-in-France-Hysterectomy; “Hysterectomy—Topic Overview,” Alberta Health Services, myhealth.alberta.ca/Health/pages/conditions.aspx?Hwid=hw212587.
refers to this as Cassandra syndrome: Kenneth Roberson, PhD, “Adult Asperger’s and the Cassandra Phenomena,” kennethrobersonphd.com/adult-aspergers-and-the-cassandra-phenomena/.
NINE: LANDSLIDE
“more hospitable to cancer”: Markham Heid, “How stress affects cancer risk,” The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, December 2014, mdanderson.org/publications/focused-on-health/how-stress-affects-cancer-risk.h21-1589046.html.
speed the development of cancer: Valentina-Fineta Chiriac, Adriana Baban, Dan L. Dumitrascu, “Psychological stress and breast cancer incidence: a systematic review,” Clujul Medical, January 15, 2018, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5808262/.
false framing of the opt-out narrative: Joan C. Williams, Jessica Manvell, Stephanie Bornstein, “ ‘Opt Out’ or Pushed Out?: How the Press Covers Work/Family Conflict, The Untold Story of Why Women Leave the Workforce,” The Center for WorkLife Law, UC Hastings College of the Law, 2006, psychologytoday.com/files/attachments/47131/optoutorpushedoutreportfinal.pdf.
crucial first three months: Robert Winston, Rebecca Chicot, “The importance of early bonding on the long-term mental health and resilience of children,” London Journal of Primary Care, February 24, 2016, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5330336/.
considered to be failing: Kate Taylor, “Harlem Schools Are Left to Fail as Those Not Far Away Thrive,” The New York Times, January 24, 2017, nytimes.com/2017/01/24/nyregion/harlem-schools-are-left-to-fail-as-those-not-far-away-thrive.html.
“My children have only one life”: Richard Severo, “Kenneth Clark, Who Fought Segregation, Dies,” The New York Times, May 2, 2005, nytimes.com/2005/05/02/nyregion/kenneth-clark-who-fought-segregation-dies.html.
entrenched caste system: Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of our Discontents (New York: Random House, 2020).
“Conversations about racism”: UNICEF, “Talking to your kids about racism: How to start the important conversation and keep it going,” June 9, 2020, unicef.org/parenting/talking-to-your-kids-about-racism.
CEO-to-worker compensation ratio: Dominic Rushe, “US bosses now earn 312 times the average worker’s wage, figures show,” The Guardian, August 16, 2018, theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/16/ceo-versus-worker-wage-american-companies-pay-gap-study-2018.
largest rise in income inequality: “Income Inequality,” Inequality.org, inequality.org/facts/income-inequality/.
average of $21.3 million a year: Lawrence Mishel, Jori Kandra, “CEO compensation surged 14% in 2019 to $21.3 million,” Economic Policy Institute, August 18, 2020, epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-surged-14-in-2019-to-21-3-million-ceos-now-earn-320-times-as-much-as-a-typical-worker/.
a whopping $280,621,552 a year: “Highest Paid CEOs,” AFL-CIO, 2019, aflcio.org/paywatch/highest-paid-ceos.
men like to hire other men: Dina Gerdeman, “Why Employers Favor Men,” Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, September 11, 2017, hbswk.hbs.edu/item/why-employers-favor-men.
biased against older women: David Neumark, Ian Burn, Patrick Button, “I
s it Harder for Older Workers to Find Jobs? New and Improved Evidence from a Field Experiment,” National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2015, revised November 2017, nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w21669/w21669.pdf.
TEN: CHIAROSCURO
I blame the industrial revolution: Jan Riordan, RN, MN; Betty Ann Countryman, RN, MN, “Part I: Infant Feeding Patterns Past and Present,” JOGN Nursing, Volume 9, Issue 4, July–August 1980, p. 207, sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0090031115303276?via%3Dihub.
“relief theory”: Alex Borgella, “Science deconstructs humor: What makes some things funny?” The Conversation, November 1, 2016, theconversation.com/science-deconstructs-humor-what-makes-some-things-funny-64414.
Humor, according to Schopenhauer: Danny Lewis, “Finally There’s a Scientific Theory for Why Some Words are Funny: The science behind Dr. Seuss,” Smithsonian Magazine, December 7, 2015, smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/finally-theres-scientific-theory-why-some-words-are-funny-180957462/.
ELEVEN: YES, AND…
an essay I’d written in The Nation: Copaken, “My So-Called ‘Post-Feminist’ Life.”
The lede, after readers revolted: Douglas Martin, “Yvonne Brill, a Pioneering Rocket Scientist, Dies at 88,” The New York Times, March 30, 2013, nytimes.com/2013/03/31/science/space/yvonne-brill-rocket-scientist-dies-at-88.html.
“refers to me as a stay-at-home mom”: Janet Reitman, “Bang-Bang girl,” Salon, January 30, 2001, salon.com/2001/01/29/shutterbabe/; Rebecca Johnson, “Shutterbabe: A photojournalist chronicles love and death around the globe,” Talk, January 2001.
first used in 1982: Miriam Peskowitz, The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars: Who Decides What Makes a Good Mother? (Seal Press, 2005), pp. 24–25.
“Women’s Prize for Fiction nominee”: Nick Clark, “Women’s Prize for Fiction nominee Deborah Copaken Kogan lifts the lid on sexism in publishing and the arts,” The Independent, April 12, 2013, independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/women-s-prize-fiction-nominee-deborah-copaken-kogan-lifts-lid-sexism-publishing-and-arts-8570468.html.
calling me “Heroine of the Day”: Melissa Silverstein, “Heroine of the Day: Deborah Copaken Kogan,” Women and Hollywood, April 11, 2013, womenandhollywood.com/heroine-of-the-day-deborah-copaken-kogan/.
became its own meme: “This is what sexism does best: it makes you feel crazy for desiring parity and hopeless about ever achieving it,” 9Quotes, quotefancy.com/quote/1788712/Deborah-Copaken-This-is-what-sexism-does-best-it-makes-you-feel-crazy-for-desiring-parity.
permanently banned from the site: Andrew Leonard, “Wikipedia cleans up its mess,” Salon, May 21, 2013, salon.com/2013/05/21/wikipedia_cleans_up_its_mess/.
They’ve done studies: Etta Kralovic, John Buell, The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000).
U.S. government does not recognize the reality of our childcare costs: Andrew Keshner, “Child-care costs in America have soared to nearly $10K per year,” MarketWatch, March 8, 2019, marketwatch.com/story/child-care-costs-just-hit-a-new-high-2018-10-22.
no state in the entire country: Lynette M. Fraga, “Parents and the High Cost of Child Care,” Child Care Aware of America, 2017 annual report, childcareaware.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2017_CCA_High_Cost_Report_FINAL.pdf.
37 percent of their household income: Keshner, “Child-care costs in America.”
2019 Federal Reserve study: “Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2018,” Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, May 2019, federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2018-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201905.pdf.
can’t afford insulin: Sarah Jones, “Another Person Has Died After Rationing Insulin,” New York, July 15, 2019, nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/another-person-has-died-from-rationing-insulin.html.
“Medicine is for people, not for profits”: George W. Merck, Time, August 18, 1952, content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19520818,00.html.
worth $22.6 million: Kenneth C. Frazier, Executive Compensation, Salary.com, 2019, www1.salary.com/Kenneth-C-Frazier-Salary-Bonus-Stock-Options-for-MERCK-and-CO.html.
$54.8 million in his own stock: Jerry Useem, “The Stock-Buyback Swindle,” The Atlantic, August 2019, theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/08/the-stock-buyback-swindle/592774/.
pharmaceutical industry a Ponzi scheme: William Lazonick, Matt Hopkins, Ken Jacobson, Mustafa Erdem Sakinç, Öner Tulum, “US Pharma’s Financialized Business Model,” Institute for New Economic Thinking, Working Papers, July 13, 2017, ineteconomics.org/uploads/papers/WP_60-Lazonick-et-al-US-Pharma-Business-Model.pdf.
$10 billion on research and development: Useem, “The Stock-Buyback Swindle.”
lauded in the press: Riley Griffin, Anders Melin, “Merck Prepares for CEO’s Departure With Internal Successor Hunt,” June 19, 2019, bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-19/merck-prepares-for-ceo-s-departure-with-internal-successor-hunt.
nearly $4.6 billion into lobbying: “Industries,” Center for Responsive Politics, opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/industries?cycle=a.
hundreds of millions of dollars: “Industry Profile: Pharmaceuticals/Health Products,” Center for Responsive Politics, opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/industries/summary?cycle=2019&id=h04.
partly funded by pharma-dollars: Rick Claypool, “Pharma’s Orders: U.S. Representatives Who Sided With Big Pharma in Medicare Lobbying Fight Received 82% More Industry Campaign Contributions,” Public Citizen, July 11, 2016, citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/pharmas-orders-medicare-part-b-campaign-finance-report-july-2016.pdf.
“Nobody dies because”: Kathryn Watson, “GOP congressman: ‘Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care,’ ” CBS News, May 6, 2017, cbsnews.com/news/gop-congressman-nobody-dies-because-they-dont-have-access-to-health-care/.
death rates since the Supreme Court’s decision: Sara Rosenbaum, Timothy M. Westmoreland, “The Supreme Court’s Surprising Decision On The Medicaid Expansion: How Will The Federal Government And States Proceed?,” Health Affairs, August 2012, healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2012.0766.
A single death is a tragedy: attributed to Joseph Stalin, The Washington Post, January 20, 1947, oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00010383.
“the UK spends dramatically LESS”: Rob Delaney, Twitter, July 17, 2019, twitter.com/robdelaney/status/1151567475814948866.
behind the following countries: Nisha Kurani, Daniel McDermott, Nicolas Shanosky, “How does the quality of the U.S. healthcare system compare to other countries?” (chart: “The U.S. ranks last in a measure of health care access and quality, indicating higher rates of amenable mortality than peer countries”), Peterson-KFF, Health System Tracker, August 20, 2020, healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/quality-u-s-healthcare-system-compare-countries/#item-healthcare-quality-and-access-haq-index-rating-2016.
more on healthcare per capita: Gerard F. Anderson, Peter Hussey, Varduhi Petrosyan, “It’s Still The Prices, Stupid: Why The US Spends So Much On Health Care, And A Tribute To Uwe Reinhardt,” Health Affairs, January 2019, healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2018.05144.
higher GDP than the eight countries: “Richest Countries In The World 2020,” World Population Review, worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/richest-countries-in-the-world.
all but dismantled: Nicholas Kristof, “At a Clinic Threatened by Trump’s Rules, She Asks, ‘Why Attack Women?’,” The New York Times, July 27, 2019, nytimes.com/2019/07/27/opinion/sunday/women-health-trump.html.
started ke
eping a journal: Ruth Franklin, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (New York: Liveright, 2016).
TWELVE: HEALTH TODAY
overtreatment of DCIS: Peggy Orenstein, “Our Feel-Good War on Breast Cancer,” The New York Times Magazine, April 25, 2013, nytimes.com/2013/04/28/magazine/our-feel-good-war-on-breast-cancer.html.
“Everything is tracked, recorded and analyzed”: Matthew Desmond, “In order to understand the brutality of American capitalism, you have to start on the plantation,” The New York Times Magazine, August 14, 2019, nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/slavery-capitalism.html.
“Low-road capitalism”: Erik Olin Wright, Joel Rogers, American Society: How It Really Works (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011).
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