Happiness, freedom, and joy

A year in newsletters

This year was a lot. But as I looked through the year in top Men Yell at Me newsletter content — the content that made you subscribe and share. I saw four themes emerge.

Happiness and humanity

In February, I published my third book, This American Ex-Wife, which became an instant New York Times bestseller and a lightning rod for conversations about love, marriage, and sexism. I received so many grateful emails about the book what it meant to readers. Of course, I also got trashed online for hating men and being anti-marriage. Several reviewers suggested I was a bitter old hag.

My intention with the book, though, was to show how heterosexual marriage under patriarchy is a government-subsidized institution designed to maintain the American tax base and avoid funding a social safety net. Marriage was never designed for human well-being. This will only become more apparent over the next four years, as Republican lawmakers continue to take away reproductive rights, push to end no-fault-divorce, and undermine same-sex marriage and trans rights, trying to move women and queer people out of public life.

We need to create a society in which a woman’s value is not determined by her interpersonal relationships — as mother and wife — but is inherent to her existence as a human being.

The paperback comes out in February.

Here are the popular newsletters that dealt with happiness and humanity.

Ambition, the Midwest, and men

Mothering

Panicking about the girlies

Freedom

This year, I also became board co-chair for the Iowa Abortion Access Fund. And in June, the Iowa Supreme Court upheld a ban on abortions after six weeks, which means a near-total abortion ban. My new role has been a lot of work. Good work. But a lot of work. And we are still struggling to understand the impact of the court’s decision and how we can better reach and help Iowans who need care. The work is a daily reminder that we have to save ourselves. That no politician, no president, no MSNBC talking head, no joke from Jon Stewart can save us from the reality that is unfolding as LGBTQ rights are attacked, women are denied life-saving care, and immigrants become the scapegoat for the capitalist hellscape that billionaires and private equity have created.

Retreat is sometimes necessary. But staying and fighting, building up, and investing in communities and places we love is how change happens.

Here are the popular newsletters that dealt with freedom.

Stop spreading lies about abortions

Pick better

The importance of our stories

This year, I also did a lot less freelance writing. This was for a lot of reasons. The first is that freelancing doesn’t pay. Media companies are collapsing. Rates for even deeply reported pieces are low.

Sometimes I feel self-conscious about not doing more writing for prestigious outlets, which is still considered the ultimate prize for a writer. I’ve written a lot this year for Rolling Stone, an outlet I love. I’ve also written for CNN and MSNBC, two places that I like writing for because I know I will reach a wide audience. But the goal of writing isn’t prestige, or rather, it shouldn’t be.

As media outlets continue to cut back and good journalists lose their jobs while conspiracy-mongers reach more and more people, it’s worth taking stock of what we are all doing here. What stories and people and places and outlets do we value, do we want to survive?

And the issue goes beyond media companies. Because stories are how we keep a record of truth. How we hold power accountable. We need to tell our stories so that our narratives are not lost in the limited imaginations of the powers that be, so that protesters are not turned into rioters, so that immigrants are not turned into terrorists, so that trans people are not turned into predators. Telling our own stories helps us keep track of reality so we don’t collude with the conspiracies and fictions of our age.

Here are the popular newsletters that dealt with the importance of our stories.

Blackened and changed

All media is niche media now

Do our stories matter?

Humor

You all want to laugh. We live in the dumbest timeline. The next four years will be the apex of the dingularity. But humor is also how we survive. It’s how we find joy in the fight for freedom. Humor is also a powerful weapon of resistance. To take back some of what’s been taken from us.

Here are some of your top favorite funny newsletters of the year.

Dingus of the week: Dave Ramsey

Dingus of the week: Iowa Rep. Jeff Shipley

Dingus of the week: Matt Yglesias

Happiness, freedom, stories, and laughter — those were the themes that emerged when I looked through the newsletters that resonated the most with all of you.

You can also fill out a brief survey about what stories and ideas and maybe even guest writers you hope to see in the newsletter in the coming year.