The most compelling stories from our favorite sources.
This article was made possible because of the generous support of DAME members. We urgently need your help to keep publishing. Will you contribute just $5 a month to support our journalism?
This week Beyonce helped ease our Prince pain with Lemonade, which is about so much more than infidelity, as Ijeoma Olua writes. Donald Trump seemed to think the Woman Card is actually beneficial (let’s hope he reads Alexandra Petri’s piece!), and John Boehner actually spoke the truth. Amanda Peet got really real over at Lenny about aging in Hollywood and Fusion looked at the difference (or lack of?) between bodyhackers and IUD users. The forgotten misogyny of wartime prostitution and early 20th-century eugenics was brought to light, and we self-soothed by repeatedly watching Key and Peele give ridiculous names to adorable shelter cats. Happy Friday!
READ: Bodyhackers Are All Around You, They’re Called Women
Do you have an IUD? If so, do you consider yourself a cyborg? Rose Eveleth parses the reasons why you may or may not at Fusion, and why the label might be more important than we think.
READ: Play the ‘Woman Card’ and Reap These ‘Rewards’!
At the Washington Post, Alexandra Petri lays into Donald Trump’s misogyny and it is pure scathing brilliance. The Woman Card is great! “It entitles you to a sizable discount on your earnings everywhere you go… If you shop with the Woman Card at the grocery, you will get to pay 11 percent more for all the same products as men, but now they are pink.”
READ: Beyonce’s Lemonade Is About Much More Than Infidelity and Jay Z
When Ijeoma Oluo dried her eyes about Prince, she sat down and watched Lemonade, and the tears flooded once again. “Lemonade is about the love that black women have—the love that threatens to kill us, makes us crazy and makes us stronger than we should ever have to be.”
WATCH: Key and Peele Give a Bunch of Shelter Cats Absurd Names
Key and Peele’s new movie Keanu, stars a cat whose real name is Clementine, so the comedians went to an animal shelter and named all the cats there. We’d like to adopt Purrhugz N’ Harmony and we also wish The Real Treehouse Cats of Chicago was an actual show.
READ: John Boehner Describes Ted Cruz as “Lucifer in the Flesh”
For once we completely agree with the former Speaker of the House.
READ: Amanda Peet: Never Crossing the Botox Rubicon
Amanda Peet’s touching and honest essay about what it means to be an actress, when looks equate to worth, was the highlight of this week’s Lenny Letter.
LISTEN: Stuff Mom Never Told You: A Buffer of Whores
According to Cristen and Caroline, the hosts of “Stuff Mom Never Told You,” wartime prostitution is American as Uncle Sam and apple pie. Their podcast about it is as fascinating as a war story.
READ: The Forgotten Lessons of the American Eugenics Movement
In the early 1900s, eugenics was touted in schools and celebrated at the World’s Fair. How quickly we forget, which is why Andrea Denhoed’s piece at the New Yorker is so crucial.
Illustration via Lenny by Danie Drinkwalter