Introducing Wait, Really? — a weekly-ish newsletter on cultural obsessions and absurdities, feminism and gender politics, historical tidbits, internet rabbit holes, and more by @jessicabennett, journalist and FFC author. A lil preview of what you can expect: 💄My thoughts on #PamCore — that’s fashion based on Pamela Anderson’s early aughts looks — trending on TikTok, at the same time as a popular TV show about her (one which she refused to take part — and, in fact, said she wishes didn’t exist.) 👩🏻‍⚖️ A dispatch from the absolutely bonkers live-streamed defamation trial filed by Johnny Depp against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, and the batshit conspiracy theory memes — the vast, vast majority of them pro-Depp — that are all over social media.
 🧊A deep dive into the long and very fraught history of frigid (and, surprise: sexist!) office temperatures as many of us return to work.
 🎁 Exclusive interviews with authors and thinkers, recs, reviews, archives that made me LOL, behind-the-scenes dish from my NYT reporting, and more! 
 ✨Subscribe at the link in bio to get newsletters on whatever I’m musing on (or raging about) in a given week✨

Lindsay Lohan, now out of the spotlight and living in Dubai, where for the first time in her life, she has said, she feels safe. Paris Hilton, who in a 2020 documentary detailed emotional and physical abuse she suffered as a teenager. Janet Jackson, who was blacklisted after the 2004 Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction” that left her breast exposed, while the man who exposed it, Justin Timberlake, was not. Brandy, the singer and “Moesha” star, who described faking her marriage for fear that being an unwed mother would threaten her career. Anna Nicole Smith, labeled “white trash” while she was alive and “obtrusively voluptuous” in her obituary when she was dead. And then there’s Whitney Houston, whose marital problems and battle with drug addiction were broadcast to the world in an early-2000s Bravo series. The list goes on... “We tend to forget the collective experience,” said Monica Lewinsky. “We direct this kind of vitriol and misogyny toward one woman, but it actually reverberates to all women. We’re all collateral damage, whether we’re the object or not.” LINK IN BIO #freebritney #britneyspears #janetjackson #doublestandard

It’s👏 a👏new👏day👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏🇺🇸🇺🇸 🇺🇸 📷 (black and white): @nytmills

Impeached. Twice. #donaldtrump

let’s go 2021

xmas moooood board 💃🏽🎄happy holidays from the FFC!

What is #MANSPLAINING. RIP Alex Trebek 💜

Kamala Harris — first woman, first Black woman, first Indian-American woman to be elected vice president, in suffragist white, said in her first address to the nation that a “a new day for America” had arrived. She recalled her mother, an immigrant who came to California as a teen, and the women upon whose shoulders she stood. “I am thinking about her and about the generations of women — Black women, Asian, white, Latina, Native American women — who throughout our nation’s history have paved the way for this moment; women who fought and sacrificed so much for equality and liberty and justice for all,” she said. She continued, before introducing Joe Biden: “While I might be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last.” #herstory

🇺🇸 🇺🇸🇺🇸

#VOTE 🇺🇸

Men’s voices tend to be lower which does in fact allow them to carry better in a crowd — it’s why women politicians have, for decades, trained themselves to slow their pace, lower their tone, adjust their cadence (see: Margaret Thatcher, who famously trained to deepen her voice). But there is also deeply ingrained bias: Dating back to the phonograph, engineers created a device that was designed for the male voice — newscasters, presidents, public figures — to the extent that if a woman spoke into it, her voice would sound distorted, thin or scrambled. Years later, Americans still associate the male voice with authority. Which is *precisely* why it’s so important to have a moderator who can shut these dudes up. Our nomination for moderator? THE FLY 🐜

Take it from @gloriasteinem: We can each honor Ruth Bader Ginsburg by asking ourselves, “What Would Ruth Do?” Using this as a guide in our own lives will keep her with us. Rest in power, dear #RBG. Now it’s up to us to continue the fight. ✊✊🏽✊🏾 Design by @whatwouldgloriado