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Before, and After, the Jogger: Survivors of the real ‘Central Park Five’ attacker speak for the first time. (Sarah Weinman for The Cut)
Thirty years ago, the attempted murder, rape, and assault of the woman still more commonly known today by her tabloid name — the Central Park Jogger — than as Trisha Meili, brought together real and imagined fears of a collapsing New York City into an unholy cocktail of outrage, blame, and recrimination. Nineteen eighty-nine was near the apex of escalating crime rates (nearly 2,000 people murdered, a record eclipsed the following year), underfunded social services, brazen muggings on graffiti-emblazoned subways, skyrocketing drug use thanks to the infusion of crack cocaine, and a police force that seemed helpless to do much about any of it.
The Gymnast’s Position (Dvora Meyers for Longreads)
Talking about beauty in women’s sports can feel problematic. For many women, athletics are supposed to liberate them from the demands of looking a certain way. Sports, we generally think, are supposed to be about what your body can do, not how your body looks. But the image of Trepanier was all beauty with grace notes of strength. It didn’t mark her as an athlete but as a woman.
The Crusading Bloggers Exposing Abuse in Protestant Churches (Sarah Stankorb for the Washington Post)
Most of these bloggers are women; many come from churches that teach women’s submission and deny women’s spiritual authority. “Investigative blogger women started a revolution at their kitchen tables,” says pastor Ashley Easter, who hosts the Courage Conference, a Christian, survivor-focused gathering. They have advocated “for victims of abuse from where they were, where they could find a platform — blogs and social media.”
Credible Fear (Erica Hellerstein for Marie Claire)
But when Gabriela set foot in Tijuana’s square, she didn’t realize that she had stepped out of one battlefield and onto another, one waged in the realm of bureaucracy and policy. Suitcases in hand, children by her side, she strode into the plaza ready to move forward, unaware that she was standing at the edge of a labyrinth, whose twists and turns threatened to leave her right where she started.
A Supposedly Fun Thing I Just Might Do Again (Emily Nunn for Outside)
I should say right now that I’m absolutely the most ridiculous person in the world. Here I was, griping on my way to a virtual fairyland, where lucky people while away their days amid the glories of nature, truly secluded from the rest of the planet’s stupid, boring problems, playing tennis, fly-fishing, shooting clays (and deer and turkeys and pheasants), throwing tomahawks, climbing trees (with a trained assistant), “forest bathing” (walking in the woods), horseback riding, rowing down a river, golfing on a first-class Donald Steel course, and being rich.
Photo: David Slack