Phoebe Maltz Bovy is a former editor of the Sisterhood blog at the Forward. Her writing has appeared in several publications, including The New Republic and The Atlantic. Her book, “The Perils of ‘Privilege,’” was published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2017. She has a PhD in French and French Studies from New York University, and has read a lot of 19th century French Jewish newspapers for a 21st century American.
Phoebe Maltz Bovy
By Phoebe Maltz Bovy
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Life Lena Dunham’s Poorly-Phrased Abortion Remarks Draw Outrage
A headline is making the viral rounds: “Lena Dunham: ‘I still haven’t had an abortion, but I wish I had.’” What Dunham was expressing, in her Women of the Hour podcast, was a wish for abortion to be destigmatized. But she expressed this wish in very on-brand (that is, oblivious and outrage-inspiring) terms, thereby insuring…
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Life Watching “Zero Motivation” as an American Jewish Woman
Over the weekend I finally got around to watching “Zero Motivation,” the 2014 IDF tragicomedy by Talia Lavie (interviewed here). The movie centers on female characters’ experiences doing administrative work as part of their mandatory military service, and has been aptly compared to “Office Space.” What most struck me about the movie, watching it as…
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Life Is Richard Spencer’s Mom Paying Price for Sins of Her Racist Son?
In a Daily Inter Lake op-ed, Rand and Sherry Spencer, “alt-right” leader Richard Spencer’s parents, make clear that they do not support their son’s politics: “We are not racists. We have never been racists. We do not endorse the idea of white nationalism.” That’s good to hear! The story, alas, does not end there. I…
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Life A Celebration of Zsa Zsa Gabor’s Rejection of ‘Natural’
Until approximately five minutes ago — that is, until she died yesterday, at 99 — I had not realized Zsa Zsa Gabor came from a Jewish family. (Was of Jewish origin, I’m tempted to say, because that’s how it would be said in French, and a Continental flair seems apropos.) As Benjamin Ivry points out,…
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Life When Haters of Jews and Women Join Forces
On Jezebel, classics scholar Donna Zuckerberg (who happens to be Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s sister) raises an important question: “[W]hy have so many white, male leaders of communities and websites that used to focus on sex and gender shifted in recent months to anti-Semitism, white nationalism, and complaining about “(((the media)))”? In part, of course,…
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Life Links for Later: Self-Care Edition
-Marisa Meltzer explores “the difference between self-care and simply pampering.” -Madeleine Schwartz reported on Zika and reproductive rights in El Salvador. -Marianne Cooper ponders the cancellation of Good Girls Revolt argues that the “tendency for white men to disproportionately control editorial decision making — to use their particular experience and taste as a proxy for…
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Life ‘Ivanka’s Salad’ Gets Panned in Brutal Vanity Fair Review of Trump Grill
When is a restaurant review not a restaurant review? Tina Nguyen’s Vanity Fair story, “Trump Grill Could Be the Worst Restaurant in America,” is a masterpiece, down to the last detail. (Note the caption on the photo of the wall art.) Yes, it’s a description of an aggressively mediocre-sounding restaurant. But not in the manner…
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Life Donald Trump Tweets Without Consequences. His Critics Like Julia Ioffe Cannot.
It had long struck me that the one innocuous aspect of Trump’s anti-‘PC’ appeal — yes, in a sea of more sinister ones —is that he represents the ability to succeed without having gaffes or gauche slip-ups held against him. That thing where politicians had to be impeccable, to have never literally or proverbially inhaled,…
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