Articles

By Lana Schwartz In the vast and varied world of romance, with its sea of fun, fizzy tropes (second-chance romance, fake relationship, enemies to lovers, and so on), the romance writer has become a trope in and of its — or should I say her — self. The harried, often mousy, and even more often…

By Heide Brandes When Alannah, 54, laughed too hard at a friend's dinner party, she quietly excused herself to the restroom. Again. For millions of women like her, urinary incontinence isn't just an inconvenience, it's a daily reality that affects everything from exercise routines to social lives. However, the "inevitable" leakage that touches up to…

By Brooke Berman Remember the iconic scene in the Terry Gilliam movie Brazil where Katherine Helmond has her face stretched out? That’s what I used to think of when I heard the phrase “getting work done.” Clearly, I thought, nobody I know would ever do that.  And yet here we are, decades later, and the…

By Kimberly Harrington Alimony never crossed my mind while I was married. It didn’t cross my mind when my then-husband and I separated. It didn’t even cross my mind when I was writing a whole-ass book about all of those things, including our impending divorce. I thought alimony was men’s business. And since I knew…

By Vanessa K. De Luca Last year, I moved closer to my parents to make it easier for me to check in on them. My dad, 81, is increasingly showing signs of senility and my mom, 78, sometimes has arthritis pain so severe that when the weather is unfavorable she can barely get out of…

By Jill E. Duffy The female midlife crisis is no longer a crisis. It's a reckoning. And some women are finding it's the time of their lives. Women over 40 are pursuing better sex (especially after divorce), competing in extreme sports, and adopting new identities. After decades of body-shaming culture, they’re sloughing off the stigma…

By Lydia Wang The issue began in her early 30s: Jennifer, 38, noticed that she wasn’t sleeping well after drinking even a small amount of alcohol. She’d struggle with insomnia, or wake up too early. The next morning, “I’d feel really fatigued and out of it,” she recalls. “Not necessarily hungover, but just tired and…

By Kara Stevens Despite old stereotypes, women are prudent with money and the numbers back it up. A recent LendingTree survey found that we are more cautious with spending than men. In fact, 51 percent of men admitted to going into credit card debt due to nonessential expenditures, compared to just 42 percent of women.…

By Gila Pfeffer I was eighteen when my 40-year-old mother found the lump. The tumor was 8 cm, a size that made me wonder how she hadn’t caught it sooner, given that her own mother had died of the disease at forty-nine. She reluctantly underwent chemotherapy, which shrank the tumor, and her medical team urged…

By Tiffany Iung I’ve worked in food service since I was old enough to have a job. As a born people-pleaser, I was destined for hospitality, and always dreamed of owning a little place where I could offer my own version of great care and good food.  But it’s hard to open a restaurant, and…

The article was adapted from a piece published originally on The Purse. By Lindsey Stanberry I think I have mostly lived in a place of denial since last year’s presidential election. I woke up the morning after Election Day feeling that sharp pang of deep disappointment many of us know well, wrote a newsletter in…

By Leslie Price and Marquita Harris In January, we asked readers without kids to describe their relationships with their friends who are mothers. Responses poured in; some surprising, some devastating. We were moved by how much kindness, understanding, and patience were captured in all of your thoughtful words.  What we gathered from your responses (and…