Hysterics & Hearsay
A weekly roundup in culture and politics
This is Hysterics & Hearsay, your weekly roundup of news and fun things from around the internet. The intent with this weekly instalment is to help you stay informed and entertained about key happenings from the week and anything else I find share-worthy. There is so much happening in the world, and I can’t write about it all, so let’s look at some other writers and creators who are sharing their knowledge.
Take or leave whatever you please! And if you come across a piece of information or content you find particularly relevant and riveting, please feel free to share with me and I just might add it to that week’s list!
Sunday, September 1, 2024
The Story of Jane by Laura Kaplan. I read this book a couple of months ago but I could NOT get over the story, so much so, in fact, that I hyper-focused on it for a couple of weeks. This book chronicles the history of the Jane Collection, a feminist group and movement, in a way, founded in 1970s Chicago to help provide women with abortions. Abortions were illegal in Illinois at the time, so initially the group of women–all volunteers–helped connect women to abortion services, whether that be directing them to a local doctor performing the procedure illegally, or encouraging them to go to England, New York and Puerto Rico at different points in time. While this story isn’t a secret, I don’t want to spoil it for you–just know the Collective’s mission gets much riskier in the few years they are up and running.
In modern abortion news, feminist writer and journalist Jessica Valenti published a post today on her Substack Abortion, Every Day about Trump’s latest contradictory statements on IVF, as well as the criminalization of abortion. I highly recommend following Valenti for her coverage on abortion in the US, especially as we near a federal election.
Now for something completely different: I started watching Workin’ Moms again this week because I needed something relatable and lighter than the swarm of SVU episodes I was taking in. I’ve watched the entire series before, but it’s always refreshing to go back, I find, largely because it doesn’t hold back (too much). It covers everything from postpartum to marital infidelity, to problem children to navigating “work-life-balance” as a mother in modern times. It’s worth a watch if you’re in the mood for something new and funny.
I was introduced to journalist Lewis Wallace via a podcast I was listening to featuring another journalist, Steven Thrasher. In the episode, Thrasher was discussing journalistic objectivity, and brought up Wallace’s 2017 piece on the subject. As journalists, we’re taught to be objective–that’s allegedly a key component in what makes us trustworthy. It also lends a big hand to journalistic ethics. But Wallace argues that each journalist has their own perspective on the issues, and that we can still report the truth while letting go of neutrality, and embracing our individual experiences, beliefs and perspectives from where we stand in the political world. If you are a big consumer or news and information, this is worth a read.
Speaking of sharing perspectives and letting the audience decide for themselves what they will make of your art… last weekend I had the absolute greatest pleasure of seeing Hozier live and cannot stop listening to his albums. I find it so interesting how he is so well known for these love-bound lyrics, but so much of his work is about finding freedom from the patriarchal and religious infrastructure of society. It’s all about perspective, I suppose, and what we want, or are ready, to see.
And that’s all she wrote. For now.
M