Jessica Bennett

They call themselves the Sisterhood of the Strange Sorority. There are 19, or 26, or 67 of them, depending on who’s counting. They are the women who accused Tr*mp of sexual assault — and whose stories, at one point, it seemed might matter.

I’ve been talking to these women for years now; since they started zooming with each other in the pandemic. Recently, I traveled with a few of them to the DNC.

This is a political story, but it’s also a story about how narratives move; about who is deemed credible; about who gets written out of the story; about the remarkable time we are living in where it is so easy to forget — there’s so much else happening! — and ultimately, about the women with an unusual bond who are making one last effort to be heard.

I hope you’ll give it a read; gift link below (avoids paywall).

Opinion | They Call Themselves the ‘Strange Sorority.’ Trump Was Their Initiation. (Gift Article) The world has moved on. They haven’t.

A LOT HAPPENED 2NITE!!!

I red light lazered my knees
While chatting w some v smart gender sociologists
While writing a piece
Taylor endorsed
And I sent my students tweets about Britney stans who counting down the days til K Fed stops getting child support thx 🤣

But for real politics is a retro masculinity contest and Kamala is straight up slicing through it in a way that is so fascinating to watch

Jock insurance!!!!! I could write a thesis on it I love it so much. Also why are ppl carrying around vials of JD Vance’s faux s***m? Truly weird.

It has always irked me the way E. Jean Carroll is referred to as a “former advice columnist.” Far before she was writing columns, which she is still doing, and before she became known as the wacky old lady who sued Trump, she made her name as a gonzo-style journalist that The New York Times once called “feminism’s answer to Hunter S. Thompson” — who she once lived with, by the way, for her biography of him.

She trekked alone across the mountains Papua New Guinea in search of the “primitive man” for Pl***oy; somehow convinced Fran Leibovitz to go camping with her for Outside; profiled Lyle Lovett and Dan Rather in Esquire; appeared in Best American Crime Writing — and did it at a time when there were few women (she was the first woman contributing editor at Pl***oy) and in ways that didn’t neatly jibe with how women of her generation were expected to live their lives.

I’ve always thought age was silently and subtly at play in “former advice columnist,” at least a little — but it was most certainly at play in the way her narrative over the last four years has played out.

Here’s to carrying yourself with the confidence of an 80-year-old woman, a *journalist,* who has the audacity to say she’s still worth something.*

* $83.3 million dollars 💸

Opinion | The Audacity of E. Jean Carroll E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit against Donald Trump was about defamation. But it was also about the worth of a woman, long past middle age, who dared to claim she still had value.