For the InHerShoes podcast, jiatolentino spoke to Cut editor-in-chief Lindsay Peoples about writing through our unprecedented times
Photo: Elena Mudd After the overturning of Roe v. Wade, certain widely shared articles flooded our social-media feeds. One, called “We’re Not Going Back to the Time Before Roe. We’re Going Somewhere Worse,” was written by Jia Tolentino. A staff writer at The New Yorker, Tolentino was formerly a deputy editor at Jezebel and a contributing editor at the Hairpin.
The show is called In Her Shoes, so I’m curious, what shoes do you have on right now and what’s the story behind them? Or if you’re not wearing any shoes, because I’m usually just wearing some slippers at home, what’s your favorite pair of shoes and why? I’ve been thinking lately it’s like those form the foundation of my belief and the moral necessity of abortion rights, but for many of the people I grew up with, those exact beliefs are the foundation of their beliefs that abortion should be illegal, and it’s just a whole thing. But so, yeah, my parents and I moved from Canada — Toronto — to Houston in ’94, I think.
Lindsay: Right. So do you feel like because you grew up and had these feelings of opposition to a lot of people around you, that’s what led you to want to write? Or where did you really find that compelling energy to want to write? And what was your start in the industry like? There’s this funny thing that happened to me where I had started to try to write a novel. I was like, Okay, I just want to try to write something that I can — I want to finish a long project. Because I’d written short stories for a long time. And the novel was set on one long day in the New York summer, and the main characters were four really good friends from college. And the name of the manuscript was called Girls.
And she cold emailed me, and she was like, “Would you like to be my co-editor?” And I was like, “What? Of course.” And so I started doing that, and it was halfway through grad school, and it was like a huge door opened. I mean, it was exactly like a huge door opened; I just never thought — I didn’t live in New York, I didn’t know anyone, I didn’t know what was going on, I didn’t understand the world of the New York media, whatever.
I feel so stupid for having to manage my emotions like this, but I do, and I think there’s also a feeling at this moment, I think, of, We literally have no choice but to be in it.Jia: We have no choice: We cannot retreat from this. It’s not possible; there’s no option to do that. Paralysis is not even really a viable option in my head anymore. And there have been so many times in my life where it has felt like one and now it’s like, Well, nope, it’s not optional.
And I think that one of the things that is being misunderstood is Roe took so much effort and organizing and radical work to get that protection. Took decades and decades and decades of work, and we’re going to have to engage in prolonged radical collective action to get anything done that we want. And that’s something that some people, and myself included probably at an instinctive level, have a hard time accepting.
Lindsay: Yeah. Is there a specific worst-case scenario that keeps you up at night as far as the surveillance or just lack of bodily autonomy or general access to medical assistance that you’ve been just ruminating on?Jia: I’ve been thinking a lot about child pregnancy — people have been up in my shit about saying pregnant people, and it’s not just being trans-inclusive, it’s cause a lot of people who get pregnant are not women because they’re 10 or 11.
Lindsay: Exactly. I mean, you’ve also talked about motherhood as a form of rebellion, and you’ve become a parent. Has that changed your worldview about this issue? What has that meant for your own personal life? And so since her, I’ve been trying to be like, Okay, you have these new capacities, and you can’t just direct them at your daughter. You have to learn how you can regularly place your caregiving in the realm of your friends, in the realm of your community, in the realm of other things.
But I definitely don’t feel guarded about talking about motherhood at all. Because I think there’s still, despite the omnipresence of mother shit on the internet, there’s so little of it that represents motherhood as I’ve actually experienced it, which doesn’t fit into the language of the way it’s — for as much as the motherhood internet is so omnipresent, I think people are still fumbling toward a way to actually speak about it in a way that is meaningful and not predetermined.
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