Welcome to Litsy!

We are witnessing the patriarchy’s last gasp, and it’s not going down without a fight. Using legislation, language, and women’s own silence, it seeks to return us to a time when choice and self-determination were not options. In this collection, twenty-one fearless writers examine reproductive rights, access to health care, violence against women, and the rise of rape apologists in the twenty-first-century United States. Illuminating intersections of gender, class, and race, these stories speak to the challenges women routinely face, the attempts to undermine their rights, and the deliberate, systemic erosion of their agency and existence as equals. It’s time to revisit what’s at stake, what could still be lost, and why we must continually fight for equality and freedom for all. Roxane Gay • The Alienable Rights of Women Betty MacDonald • Before Roe v. Wade Katha Pollitt Remember • Savita Halappanavar Dolores P. • Ask an Abortion Provider Sari Botton • Confessions of a Good Girl Addy Robinson McCulloch • Three Heresies Tara Murtha • Ripple Effect Sarah Mirk • Lucky Breaks and Little Miracles Kari O’Driscoll • A Mile in Their Shoes Martha Bayne • Knocked Over: On Biology, Magical Thinking, and Choice Janet Frishberg • Endo Mira Ptacin • Un-Bearing J. Victoria Sanders • Grown-Woman Swagger s.e. smith • Justice for All Camille Hayes • The Great Leap Backward Rebecca K. O’Connor • Birdsong and Gunshot Lidia Yuknavitch • Explicit Violence Elissa Bassist • Caffeine-Free Rape Kevin Sampsell • I Know Who You Raped Last Summer Kate Sheppard • Don’t Know Much About Biology Rebecca Cohen • Binders Full of Women: Episode 1, The Story of Mary & Bill