IT’S A DAY of rest, and you may be in the mood for a quiet corner and a comfy chair.
We’ve hand-picked the week’s best reads for you to savour.
A contraceptive implant called Essure was supposed to slash women’s risk of pregnancy – but some of the women using it have reported terrible side effects.
(Washington Post, approx 38 mins reading time)
But suddenly lots of “little things” were going haywire with Keisha’s body, the couple recounts for me as we sit in their neat, airy suburban townhouse about 30 miles south of Washington. Her hair was falling out in clumps, she was having unusually heavy periods and severe cramps at odd times in her cycle, she was gaining weight and battling brain fog and severe fatigue — even when she’d slept.
2. The internet celebrity summer camp
It’s probably not a surprise to hear that in the USA, there are summer camps specially for young people who want to be internet celebrities. Here’s a look into what one of them involves.
(The Verge, approx 17 mins reading time)
Because the camp is an offshoot of the actors program, many of these wannabe social stars are using this knowledge as a way to further their desired acting careers. They’re young, but they have a business-like focus on their futures. “I’m hoping this will get me more information on how I can grow my pages so people can see my content,” says one boy, a 15-year-old from Mississippi who’s recently taken to singing on his Instagram and YouTube channel.
Women who almost were CEOs talk to the New York Times about why they didn’t make it – and the multiple barriers that stand in women’s way.
(New York Times, approx 14 mins reading time)
What they say: Women are often seen as dependable, less often as visionary. Women tend to be less comfortable with self-promotion — and more likely to be criticized when they do grab the spotlight. Men remain threatened by assertive women. Most women are not socialized to be unapologetically competitive. Some women get discouraged and drop out along the way. And many are disproportionately penalized for stumbles.
There’s been a lot of talk around police body cameras of late – with some suggestions that they should be introduced in Ireland. This Vox piece looks at how sometimes they haven’t done what they were intended to do.
(Vox, approx 15 mins reading time)
Yet as the policy has rolled out, we’ve seen the sharp limitations of cameras and video — not just in the Tensing trial, but also other cases in which video provided evidence of what happened. The courtroom failures point to the fundamental limitation in recording the police: While it can help hold cops accountable in some cases, the problems with American police and how they use force are simply far bigger than a lack of video. So what was once thought of as a relatively easy fix to police use of force issues has ended up falling short of what many supporters and activists anticipated.
5. How science has misrepresented women
A new book about science and the female sex says that new research is having to undo previously-held beliefs about women.
(NY Mag, approx 12 mins reading time)
But what science says about women — what surprised me is that this is also a complicated picture. The biological story that we get about women, I was stunned to learn, is actually full of controversy, and is a scientific battleground in many ways. The picture is not very clear. And perhaps that’s to be expected, because you’re studying human biology and behavior, and it’s complicated.
A long profile of the video-game designer Zoe Quinn, who became embroiled in Gamergate but came out the other side. It all started with a date with a man named Eron Gjoni.
(Select/All, approx 32 mins reading time)
They started a relationship that was intense at first, then off and on as the spring wound down. It was not an unusual course of events for a 20-something romance. But what followed was extraordinary, an act of revenge on an ex that became about much more than the two of them, that rippled across the video-game industry and far beyond. As Quinn writes in her memoir, Crash Override, out this September from Public Affairs, “My breakup required the intervention of the United Nations.”
…AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…
Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump banned transgender people from serving in the military. This is a profile of Kristin Beck from 2015 – a Navy Seal who transitioned.
(GQ, approx 23 mins reading time)
But she would always dress. She would fly home from months of doing two or three missions a night, it’s safe to assume from killing people with her bare hands, and she would close the door to her bedroom and secretly put on dresses and panty hose and wigs and makeup. Even after missions sometimes, when she’d return to a firebase to sleep for a few hours, she would let her mind drift and start thinking about dressing just to try to relax.
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