Jennifer Baumgardner
Jennifer Baumgardner is the editor of LIBER and the Lucille Geier Lakes writer-in-residence at Smith College. She is producing The Body of Mary: A Play in Three Acts (of God), a new play by Katie Cappiello.
On my dining room wall, mixed with family photos and a blind contour self-portrait by my son Magnus, is a diptych titled “Robert and June in front of 7 Bleecker Street, 1982.” In it, Robert (Frank, famed documentary photographer) looks like a lot of fun. He’s climbing into a giant
VOLUME 3: ISSUE 4
WINTER 2026
- Scene
Last fall (2024), I needed a few tethers to keep me from free fall in my new life, new apartment, new job, new freedom. So my friend Katie Cappiello and I instituted a weekly meeting at my apartment on Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to noon. There were no rules about
VOLUME 3: ISSUE 4
WINTER 2026
- Of Mike and Men
I’m on a live theater kick, so I caught Trophy Boys during its off-Broadway run last summer. The play depicts four male debaters as they decompensate during the seventy-minute (or so) prep session they have before their final match against an all-girls school. The red-hot prompt they have to defend?
VOLUME 3: ISSUE 4
WINTER 2026
Dear Readers, In the latest entry in total waste of time, I spent an hour disabling the default AI writing features that, in the last few months, have invaded my email (Google) and the software I use to draft articles (Word). Words and whole sentences are suggested, in a reputedly
VOLUME 3: ISSUE 3
SUMMER 2025
- Memory
Along with the National Organization for Women and the American Association of University Women (AAUW), Ms. magazine was feminism when I was a kid. I grew up in 1970s Fargo, where my mom subscribed to Ms. and was a member of AAUW. A Ms. mom was different than a mom
VOLUME 3: ISSUE 3
SUMMER 2025
- Walking the Talk
“These days, when people sling words of criticism like ‘performative’ or ‘saviorism,’ I hear scornful dismissal, not sophistication. Allies can be ‘proven,’ ‘potential,’ or ‘problematic,’” Loretta J. Ross writes, but importantly “they are allies.” In Calling In, her sixth book, Rossmixes memoir with advice for dealing with conflict. The advice
VOLUME 3: ISSUE 3
SUMMER 2025
Édouard Manet’s painting Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Luncheon on the Grass) has inspired multiple homages since its scandalizing debut in 1863. You’ve seen it: two overdressed men (dandies) join a totally nude woman/prostitute (likely the model, muse, and artist Victorine Meurent) for a picnic while another woman/prostitute in a slip
VOLUME 3: ISSUE 2
WINTER 2025
Dear Readers, This is the long-awaited “Fall 2024” issue arriving in January 2025. Here is part of the reason why—in addition to the arbitrariness of print publishing deadlines in the current era, the second half of 2024 contained more panic, rupture, and change than any previous year of my life:
VOLUME 3: ISSUE 2
WINTER 2025
- Roundtable
On June 26, 2024, a group of feminists whose work focuses on all things reproductive gathered to begin strategizing for the long term about how to regain the rights lost by the Dobbs decision. Our group ranged in age from seventeen to seventy-eight and included a journalist, a playwright, three
- Real Housewives
In both her 2016 and 2018 Netflix comedy specials, Ali Wong was seven months pregnant. In both, she wore skintight minidresses in wild prints. She looked feral, grouchy, and ready to spring. It was striking. Her latest, Single Lady, is about her life after divorcing her husband of ten years.
VOLUME 3: ISSUE 2
WINTER 2025