OFFICIAL BLOG

Fieldnotes

Meet the Experts of UNTRUE: A conversation with Mischa Lin

Published by Wednesday Martin

When I began writing Untrue: Why Nearly Everything We Believe About Women, Lust, and Infidelity Is Wrong and How the New Science Can Set Us Free, the focus was primarily on female infidelity and popular mis/representations of female sexuality. But in the course of doing research and discussing the project with friends, I came to realize that I also needed to explore another topic: polyamory. Many signs suggested that the practice was growing. And several experts had observed that anecdotal data indicated this growth was being driven primarily by women, making it a good subject to discuss in the book. One of the first people I reached out to in my effort to educate myself about the modern poly scene was Mischa Lin. Mischa is one of the cofounders of Open Love NY, a leading organization run for and by the polyamorous community. Over the course of a fascinating interview, she walked me through some of the history of modern polyamory, the current polyamorous landscape, and what the culture at large could learn from her community. As Mischa was quick to note, “nonmonogamy has been around since the beginning of time,” with examples throughout ancient societies like the Greeks. But what is new in modern polyamory is the introduction of ethics, agency, and consent norms in pursuing nonmonogamy that is “joyful and fulfilling” as monogamy. (Scholar Elisabeth Sheff places contemporary polyamory in the third wave of consensual nonmonogamy, which she traces back to 19th century transcendentalists.) People have found many different ways into this community. Mischa in our interview shared with me that she was in a monogamous marriage for many years prior to becoming polyamorous. The marriage ended after she made a gender transition and fell in love with another person who was married and living with an 'intentional family.' Mischa moved from Texas to New Jersey to be closer to them, although at the time they did not call it "polyamory”.


Wednesday's Woman Crush

Published by Wednesday Martin

Today’s MASSIVE crush on two fearless leaders—Okoye and Rachel Simmons. Have you seen Black Panther? It has broken the box office and inspired people across the US. I haven’t seen my friends this excited—about a movie that is more like a cultural event, and what feels like both the proof of and the possibility of even more meaningful social change--in a long time. Maybe ever. Okoye is inspiring girls and boys alike with her strength, smarts, and proud blackness. What does it mean when women lead unambivalently, without fear of stepping on male egos, without fear of reprisal from the greater male coalition? Okoye does just this. Can the rest of us get there? Rachel Simmons wants to know. The author of trailblazing Odd Girl Out has written another sure-to-be-a-classic for feminists, parents, and everybody else—Enough as She Is. Rachel’s message is that we have to let girls learn to fail and learn to forgive themselves for it if we want them to thrive and to lead. Buy it here—and I’ll see you at Black Panther.


#metoo

Published by Wednesday Martin

It's hard to remember an issue that has galvanized women like our recent national conversation about sexual harassment and sexual assault. Women are angry, fed up, and speaking up. Harvey Weinstein's harassment of women, his bartering for sexual favors with his influence as an image-maker who could make or break actresses' careers, went largely unchecked for years. And unsurprisingly, he had a whole army of enablers--everyone from the agents and managers who knew and kept sending actresses his way to the lawyers who made settlements, effectively silencing women and allowing Weinstein to continue harassing them. I have heard from dozens of women who tell me memories they had long buried are rising to the surface--memories of being propositioned at work, harassed, assaulted in any number of fields.


Playground Partners Luncheon

Published by Wednesday Martin
With Beth Kojima, a career woman with four kids. In Manhattan many women are expected to balance motherhood, work outside the home and meticulous self presentation.
With Beth Kojima, a career woman with four kids. In Manhattan many women are expected to balance motherhood, work outside the home and meticulous self presentation.

The annual Playground Partners Luncheon took place at the Boathouse in Central Park recently. It was a snowy day, but that did not reduce turnout at this popular event. Like grooming behaviors among female  papio cynocephalus (savannah baboons), attending events is an affiliative, pro-social behavior that promotes group and dyadic cohesion. We're weren't picking bugs off each other, but we may as well have been. In attending these events, talking to one another and eating and drinking together, asking about outfits and kids and work, we are essentially reassuring, connecting with and touching one another.


Lunch (and identity) on the (lower) Upper East Side

Published by Wednesday Martin
I had lunch with my friend Barbara at Chat Noir, E. 66th near Madison, recently. It’s teeming with ladies- who-lunch types. The east side in the 60s and 70s skews older than Carnegie Hill.
I had lunch with my friend Barbara at Chat Noir, E. 66th near Madison, recently. It’s teeming with ladies- who-lunch types. The east side in the 60s and 70s skews older than Carnegie Hill.

  


Strange Fall Rites of the Manhattan Tribe

Published by Wednesday Martin
Photo by Rachel Bowie. We stand right in the street to hail cabs. Often in the bike lane. Sometimes a cyclist will high five you as they bike by, no kidding.
Photo by Rachel Bowie. We stand right in the street to hail cabs. Often in the bike lane. Sometimes a cyclist will high five you as they bike by, no kidding.

Manhattan may be the exception to the adage "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." It's hard to come back to a smelly, noisy, cramped town after a beachy, rural summer idyll. Lots of us hate it — complaining about being back in town after time away away (in the Hamptons, Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket, most often) is a Fall tradition here. But distance and absence have certainly make the city look more fascinatingly strange, exotic and foreign to me after 11 weeks at the beach (don't hate me — I worked while I was there!) Manhattan and Manhattanites, now I see you as you truly are — a tribe (or collection of tribes) with rites, rituals and ways of being and doing that truly set you apart.


Mothers Who Drink — the New Normal

Published by Wednesday Martin
Plenty of mommies drink. Some of us drink an endless “glass of wine” starting at 5 pm….
Plenty of mommies drink. Some of us drink an endless “glass of wine” starting at 5 pm….

A girlfriend with kids the same age as mine texted me the other day. "Call me so we can have a drink," she suggested. She meant, call me so we can chat on the phone while we have a glass of wine. Because it was 5:30 and because like most of the women with children we know, we're mothers who drink.


Mommynomics 101: If Privileged Manhattan Moms are Lazy, I'm Missing Something

Published by Wednesday Martin
In the cultural imagination, wealthy Manhattan mom = Marie Antoinette
In the cultural imagination, wealthy Manhattan mom = Marie Antoinette

In a recent article for the New York Observer, Richard Kirshenbaum wrote about Upper East Side parents "outsourcing" their parenting duties — to their drivers. It's an amusing and insightful piece that follows on the heels of Tara Palmeri's New York Post piece about moms (and dads, c'mon!) who send nannies to do school volunteer work in their stead. Nannies acting as crossing guards and bringing school snack are rubbing many the wrong way.