Author: Eleanor J. Bader

Eleanor J. Bader is a freelance journalist from Brooklyn, N.Y., who writes for Truthout, Lilith, the LA Review of Books, RainTaxi, The Indypendent, New Pages, and The Progressive. She tweets at @eleanorjbader1 .

Breaking the Silence Around Sexual Abuse: The Ms. Q&A With Maya Golden About New Memoir ‘The Return Trip’

Award-winning multimedia journalist Maya Golden’s searing but redemptive memoir, The Return Trip, takes readers on a harrowing journey. The book offers a no-holds-barred look into the sexual abuse that began when Golden was 5 and charts her course through a troubled adolescence and young adulthood. Along the way, she probes the long-term impact of repeated sexual violation and zeroes in on the ways religious institutions, educational systems, and familial denial continue to intersect and allow the perpetuation of violence.

Golden spoke to Ms. reporter Eleanor J. Bader before The Return Trip’s Nov. 14 release. Their wide-ranging conversation touched on the book as well as the work of the 1 in 3 Foundation, a group Golden founded to support survivors of sexual assault.

The Ms. Q&A With CNN Anchor Fredricka Whitfield: ‘My Work Honors the People on Whose Shoulders I Stand’

CNN Newsroom anchor Fredricka Whitfield has a lot to be proud of. As the 2023 Women’s Media Center’s Pat Mitchell Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Whitfield’s three-plus decades as a radio and television journalist have included stints across the country, where she has covered both domestic and international issues.

Eleanor J. Bader sat down with Whitfield to learn more about her incredible story.

“My work honors the people on whose shoulders I stand. I know that I have not had it as difficult as my parents or predecessors. They had to endure so much to create the path I walk. I refuse to be deterred. I’m mindful that even on my toughest days I have it better than the people who came before me.”

In Novel ‘Bessie,’ Linda Kass Takes on Antisemitism Through the Story of the First and Only Jewish Miss America

“Bessie was not raised to be a beauty queen,” said Bessie novelist Linda Kass of Bess Myerson, the only Jewish Miss America. “She sought to have a voice, to make a difference.

“Antisemitism, racism and sexism were virulent, and homophobia was taken as a given. The arguments voiced then are similar to what we’re hearing and seeing today.”

Who Is Funding Your University? Unpacking the Hidden Influence of U.S. College Donors With Jasmine Banks

In colleges and universities across the U.S., right-wing donors endow “chairs” and departments, set up free-market boosting thinktanks, and get themselves on college boards, to ensure that progressive influences are limited, if not outright eliminated.

“Koch Industries and the entire Koch network are willing to fund projects for many years. They understand the importance of deep investment. The progressive sector needs progressive funders who are willing to mirror the philanthropy of the right.,” said Jasmine Banks, executive director of UnKoch My Campus, a national organization devoted to disrupting hidden corporate influence on U.S. college campuses.

Healing From an Abusive Relationship: The Ms. Q&A With Psychotherapist Amira Martin

Psychotherapist Amira Martin knew that it made sense to move slowly when starting a new relationship, but after a whirlwind romance, she married a man she’d known for less than a year. After all, the courtship had been perfect—indeed, the man himself appeared perfect—and however improbable, Martin believed that she had found her soul mate.

She hadn’t.

Amira Martin spoke with Ms. about her marriage, its dissolution, and what she learned from it.

Dance as a Form of Personal Healing: The Ms. Q&A With Tara Rynders

Burnout and stress have caused approximately 100,000 nurses to leave the workforce since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This comes as no surprise to Tara Rynders, a Colorado-based registered nurse who has created a series of workshops for medical staff to address the sorrow and the joy of caring for others. The workshops—which combine movement, writing, play the arts and debriefing—also focus on how workers can provide what she calls “courageous care” to themselves.

Rydners’ workshops aim to “give nurses a way to debrief and process their feelings. … Nurses and other medical workers need to be able to stand up to power and celebrate themselves, not for being self-sacrificing, but for being able to set boundaries, say no, and not comply with every request.”

‘Between Two Moons’: A Love Letter to Arab and Muslim Communities, by Aisha Abdel Gawad

Aisha Abdel Gawad calls her first novel, Between Two Moons, “a love letter to Arab and Muslim communities.” The story centers around the Brooklyn, New York-based Emam family, American-born twins Amira and Lina, their older brother Sami, and their parents, Mariam and Kareem. 

It’s an emotionally rich and revelatory portrait, set in a post 9-11 world that is still feeling the aftershocks of that unprecedented attack. But despite this grim overlay, humor and joy exist in the struggles Gawad documents.

Welfare Is a Human Right: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty With Annelise Orleck

In her book, Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty, Annelise Orleck not only shares the history of Clark County Welfare Right Organization’s (CCWRO) ascent and activism but also provides an insightful guide to community organizing.

“I loved the CCWRO’s insistence that poor women are experts on poverty and can run their own programs better than so-called professionals. And they did! … They demanded to know why a state that took tax revenue from gambling and prostitution was considered morally acceptable, but mothers trying to feed their kids were called cheaters. They were fearless.”

‘Girls and Their Monsters’: The Morlok Quadruplets and Mental Health With Audrey Clare Farley

In her newest book, Girls and Their Monsters, Audrey Clare Farley addresses the Morlok quadruplets’ earliest years as a singing-and-dancing sensation and zeroes in on their coming of age and eventual descent into schizophrenia.

“I want to stress that I don’t view the quadruplets only as victims. They looked for and found joy. The book is about people living under fascism, but it’s also about bravery and defiance.”

‘Working 9 to 5’: A Firsthand Account of the Women’s Movement, Labor Union and Iconic Movie

Ellen Cassedy’s Working 9 to 5: A Woman’s Movement, A Labor Union, and the Iconic Movie, is part memoir, part political history and part prescriptive look at the ongoing challenges facing workers today. But as much as it acknowledges how much remains to be done to achieve racial and gender equity on the job, it also celebrates 9 to 5’s many successes.