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Culture Shift is a weekly newsletter curated by the HuffPost Culture writers and editors.
This week we're talking about fairy tales, the women shaping the future of music, what ballerinas can teach you about office romances, your new podcast addiction, forgotten artist Ana Mendieta, historical fiction, and, in honor of Women's History Month, the new books by women you should read.
Move Over Disney, These Fairy Tales Show A More Accurate Female Role
Once upon a time, there was a woman with a story to tell.
Maybe she had children, and wanted to warn them about the wayward world beyond adolescence.
Maybe her mother, or her mother's mother, told her the story, and as a child she delighted in its shocking twists and turns. Maybe it helped break up the mundanity of her domestic duties, or the telling of the story felt like a duty in itself.
No one's sure exactly why this woman had a story to tell, because this woman lived as many as 6,000 years ago.
We can still imagine her intoning scary scenes with foreign howls. A charming man's buttery voice might've won over a reluctant, longhaired princess; a beguiling forest creature's dry cackle a smoke signal for danger. But exactly when and where the earliest fable-spinners lived remains a mystery. (Read more here)
What Ballerinas Can Teach You About Navigating An Office Romance
In this series, The Huffington Post profiles some of the best ballet dancers in the world, working in some of the rarest and most unusual work environments imaginable, to try to understand how they deal with the same workplace issues that confront the rest of us mere mortals.
Most of us don't get literal standing ovations from hundreds of people when we do good work. And most of us don't have to visit the physical therapist at the beginning and end of every workday. But no matter what sector we're in, the big questions are the same: What does it mean to have your body under scrutiny on the job? How does it feel to be asked to represent your entire race in a company meeting? How do you find the right people to mentor and guide you?
The first installment was about being the kind of partner people fight to work with, and the second, changing careers. In the third, Gillian Murphy explains what it's like to fall hard for a colleague. (Read more here)
FYI: Women Are Shaping The Future Of Music. Here Are Just 25 Of Them.
What will the future of music look like? New York Times Magazine published an ambitious multimedia feature on Thursday that purported to answer that question, and apparently the answer is: pretty masculine.
The feature, which includes contributions from fantastic writers such as Marlon James, George Saunders, Jenna Wortham and Jezebel's Jia Tolentino, unscrolls beautifully through an introduction (focused on Beyoncé) and 25 brief articles on individual songs that are shaping the future of music. Snippets of the songs play as you reach the relevant article. It's a delightful multimedia experience.
The writers who contributed are talented and diverse, and the selected songs include many written and performed by people of color -- an extremely important factor, especially given how often black performers and artists have been written out of music history, and still are to this day. The list celebrates Fetty Wap, Kendrick Lamar, Run The Jewels, D'Angelo, Pharrell, Vybz Kartel, Chance The Rapper, Vince Staples and a song from "Hamilton."
But one imbalance remained glaring: Out of 25 artists given the primary credit on the track noted, only four were women. Wortham wrote about Syd tha Kyd and the Internet, a band formed by Sydney Bennett of Odd Future; and then there are blurbs for Rihanna in duet with Sza, classical composer and singer Caroline Shaw, and country singer Margo Price. Should I go on? Oh, I can't -- those are the only female performers whose songs are among the 25. (Beyoncé apparently makes the introduction, but not the list.)
In response, we're listing just 25 of the women shaping the future of music. (Read more here)
Your New Podcast Addiction Is A Fictional Thriller Starring A Truck Driver
The quiet diversity of "Alice Isn't Dead" hints at what a future of inclusive media could look like. (Read more here)
The Life Of Forgotten Feminist Artist Ana Mendieta, As Told By Her Sister
Raquelin Mendieta remembers her sister and the indelible mark she left on art. (Read more here)
Historical Fiction Gets No Respect -- Here's Why It Should
Katy Simpson Smith, author of the new novel 'Free Men,' on the joys and frustrations of exploring the past. (Read more here)
Celebrate Women's History Month With 11 Fabulous New Books By Women
Thoughtful fiction and great reporting feature prominently among this year's greatest new books by women:
1. American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers by Nancy Jo Sales
2. 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad
3. The Vegetarian by Han Kang
4. The Past by Tessa Hadley
5. Innocents and Others by Dana Spiotta
6. Free Men by Katy Simpson Smith
7. All the Single Ladies by Rebecca Traister
8. The Unfinished World by Amber Sparks
9. The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie
10. My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
11. The Girl in the Red Coat by Kate Hamer
(Read more here)
Book of the Week!
A spare, powerful story about race, family and sign language. (Read more here) Follow HuffPost Arts and Books on Facebook and Twitter 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 | | |
