Marilyn Simon

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Articles

Slim Shady’s Blues

2 months ago | quillette.com | Samuel Kronen |Jonathan Rauch |Jonathan Kay |Marilyn Simon

Before American musician Marshall Mathers made a name for himself as the global cultural sensation Eminem, he was already a gifted lyricist and wordsmith on the Detroit underground scene. “I’ve been writing lyrics since I was like fourteen years old,” he explained at a press conference some years ago, “and just the more I wrote the better I kept getting at it.” His lyrics are sometimes outrageous, but they can just as often be thoughtful and introspective.
Universities Are Worth Saving

2 months ago | quillette.com | Jonathan Rauch |Jonathan Kay |Marilyn Simon

If you ask most Americans where knowledge comes from, they will probably say: the marketplace of ideas. This is a concept that goes back to English philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806–73) in theoretical terms; and was first enunciated in its modern form by US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in his dissent in the 1919 case of Abrams v.
Explaining Canada’s Cult of ‘Decolonial Futurity’ to Americans

2 months ago | quillette.com | Jonathan Kay |Marilyn Simon |Aaron Sarin

Last month, I received a tip from a nursing student at University of Alberta who’d been required to take a course called Indigenous Health in Canada. It’s a “worthwhile subject,” my correspondent (correctly) noted, “but it won’t surprise you to learn [that the course consists of] four months of self-flagellation led by a white woman.
Scandalous Monogamy and Faithful Infidelity

2 months ago | quillette.com | Marilyn Simon |Aaron Sarin |Claire Lehmann

My husband sends me a photo of himself to show me his new glasses. In the corner of the shot, just behind him on our bed, I see the face of a woman smiling up at him. My heart stops momentarily. Iâm angry, Iâm afraid, but Iâm also a little bitânot excited, exactly, and definitely not thrilledâbut... roused, perhaps? Yes. Flushed? Certainly. Aroused? No. But then again, it is hard to say. The moment passes when I recognise the face on the bed as my own.
Scandalous Monogamy and Faithful Infidelity

2 months ago | quillette.com | Marilyn Simon |Aaron Sarin |Claire Lehmann

My husband sends me a photo of himself to show me his new glasses. In the corner of the shot, just behind him on our bed, I see the face of a woman smiling up at him. My heart stops momentarily. Iâm angry, Iâm afraid, but Iâm also a little bitânot excited, exactly, and definitely not thrilledâbut... roused, perhaps? Yes. Flushed? Certainly. Aroused? No. But then again, it is hard to say. The moment passes when I recognise the face on the bed as my own.
Shakespeare Versus the Girlboss

Jan 15, 2025 | quillette.com | Marilyn Simon |Sean Welsh |Jeffrey Herf |Susie Linfield

Back in 1979, historian Christopher Lasch warned that a crisis of narcissism was about to consume our culture because self-referential thinking and feeling were being championed as ethical, effective, and equitable. His book The Culture of Narcissism provides an archaeology of how we got to where we are now, 45 years later. Behind the narcissistic impulse, he wrote, lies a desire to soothe emotional frustration and erase cognitive tension.
The cruelty of gentle parenting

Dec 22, 2024 | unherd.com | Marilyn Simon

ChildrenChristianitygentle parentingMotherhoodSocietyUS Itâs the tone of voice that is the worst part. You know the voice. âWhat kind of choice do we want to make, Aiden?â âElla, we use gentle voices with each other.â âLiam, do you think your behaviour makes Luna feel safe?âGentle parenting, or conscious parenting, professes to foster compassion and emotional self-understanding in a child.
Why girls should be tomboys

Sep 22, 2024 | unherd.com | Marilyn Simon

FeminismGendernoneSocietyWomanhood In my late teens, I went from being very girly to very boyish. After being intensely feminine during high school â skirts, makeup, boy band crushes â I adopted a new identity. I was a tomboy. My hair was buzzed off. I wore baggy jeans and joined a boxing club.
Why does hot girl summer have to end?

Sep 8, 2024 | unherd.com | Marilyn Simon

FeminismGen ZGirlhoodnoneSociety We are all used to hearing about the dire plight of Gen Z. They are addicted to social media. Fragile and over-therapised. Obsessed with identity. Activists without wisdom. Reactive without nuance. Thatâs how the story goes.
Ridicule is nothing to be scared of

May 27, 2024 | unherd.com | Marilyn Simon

My daughter started cutting herself when she was in the eighth grade. By the ninth, she had scars on both her wrists and her thighs, shallow ones, but visible. Covid lockdowns were beginning to end, but they had taken their toll on this young girl who had been isolated from friends. But the biggest pain was caused by her complex relationship with her father, who had treated her with neglect bordering on abuse. It would have been an awful lot for any adult to bear. She was only 14.