Fair Monduesday, Meteor readers,

It’s going to be a dark week in our nation, and not just because the fall weather is finally settling in. This week, a powerful, malevolent force is convening. We are, of course, referring to the Moms for Liberty Summit in Florida, which kicks off in two days.

In today’s newsletter, we consider what’s missing from peace negotiations (hint: it starts with a W). Plus, two former editors-in-chief take the shame out of being shitcanned.

WHAT’S GOING ON

A first step toward the future: Last week, the world breathed a sigh of relief when Israel and Hamas accepted a ceasefire agreement that would see the release of both Israeli and Palestinian hostages and allow aid to enter Gaza. As expected, Donald Trump took much of the credit for the agreement. But after a weekend of families reuniting with their loved ones, news broke this morning that Israeli soldiers had already shot and killed at least nine Palestinians who were returning to their homes in Khan Younis.

This is, unfortunately, a familiar situation—a ceasefire announcement, a brief moment of joy, a ceasefire violation, and then a renewed cycle of violence. But as more nations publicly demand an end to the genocide, there is a growing hope that this time will be different.

And it must be different. Over the last two years, more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed (although the UN believes this may be an undercount), and more than half of those killed were women and children. Yet despite the disproportionate impact the conflict has had on women and children, peace negotiations and planning for the future have been led almost entirely by men.

This isn’t exactly a surprise considering the makeup of the governments involved, but it is, as history has shown us, a failing strategy. Earlier this month, the United Nations commemorated the 25th anniversary of Resolution 1325, which urged leaders to “increase the participation of women and incorporate gender perspectives in all United Nations peace and security efforts.”

“Where women lead, peace follows,” Sima Bahous, the executive director of UN Women, said in a speech to the Security Council. (Data backs her up: Peace is 35% more likely to last 15 years or more when women are at the negotiating table.) In this moment, where over 600 million girls are living in zones of conflict worldwide, it seems like the right time to try a different approach.

Click here to learn how you can support aid and rebuilding efforts in Gaza. 

AND: 

• “This is the first time I’ve seen so many pregnant people in [ICE] detention,” an immigration advocate told The Intercept this week. Current ICE guidance dictates that agents should avoid detaining pregnant or postpartum women unless there are “exceptional circumstances” in place. But according to The Intercept’s reporting and lawyers representing detained women, that guidance has been ignored, and ICE is detaining pregnant women at “alarming rates.”

• The recent government shutdown has put several programs at risk of running out of money, including WIC (which covers food costs and breastfeeding support for families). Despite no end to the shutdown in sight, the USDA claims that WIC will remain funded at least through the end of October—important news for families who need it.

• The Las Vegas Aces solidified their dynasty status on Sunday after clinching their third WNBA Championship trophy. Now it’s back to the negotiating table for next year’s collective bargaining agreement. Don’t play in their faces, Cathy.

ALL THEY DO IS WIN. (VIA GETTY IMAGES) 

• Marjorie Taylor Greene is calling Republican men “weak” and “afraid of strong Republican women.” You win this round, Marjorie.

• Move over tree huggers. Job-hugging is the (depressing) new trend.

• To the many assaults on trans people in the US, let’s add this: A fringe organization called Genspect, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as an anti-LBGTQ hate group, is working to pressure the psychiatric field to label transgender identities as treatable mental illnesses, with Genspect’s founder claiming, “the drive to transition is rooted in unresolved mental disorder.”

• Three beloved trailblazers have died within days of each other. Over the weekend, queen of the First Wives Club and trendsetter Diane Keaton passed away at 79. Yesterday, transgender activist and caretaker Miss Major died as a result of complications from a bloodstream infection at 78 (although she believed her birth records were incorrect and she may have been in her 80s). Today, legendary singer and neo-soul pioneer D’Angelo—who wrote vividly and respectfully about Black women—died at 51 after battling pancreatic cancer.

Three Questions About…Getting Fired 

No shame in getting shitcanned, say Laura Brown and Kristina O’Neill

BY CINDI LEIVE 

TWO COOL FIRED GALS (COURTESY OF GALLERY BOOKS)

Getting unceremoniously sacked has always been an occupational hazard for magazine editors; back in the 1980s, Vogue’s Grace Mirabella reportedly found out she’d been let go when she heard it on the TV show Live at Five. But when it happened to Laura Brown (the former head of InStyle) and Kristina O’Neill (of WSJ Magazine), they eventually realized that, to quote Nora Ephron, everything is copy. These two friends (and, full disclosure, friends of mine) sat down to write a book about the experience: All the Cool Girls Get Fired, in which everyone from Oprah to Carol Burnett tell their own pink-slip stories.

It couldn’t be better timed. Earlier this fall I ran into an acquaintance on the subway and was telling her about the book. We noticed a woman next to us leaning close. “I”m sorry,” she said, “would you mind saying the name of that book again? I need it.”

In case you do too, here are three questions for the authors.

My first question is, the book is All the Cool Girls—not all the cool boys—Get Fired. So I’m curious—how is the experience of getting fired for women different than it is for men? Obviously it happens to them too.

Kristina O’Neill: We noticed that there was a universality around the shame and the embarrassment and the disappointment that women respond to this sort of life event with. We noticed that a lot of men, if it has happened to them, it almost becomes part of their armor and part of their narrative—I mean, Steve Jobs, Mike Bloomberg, they made getting fired part of their entire work journey. Whereas when we sat down to write this book, we couldn’t easily identify women who, after having been fired, owned it. It does seem like women have a harder time just saying what happened to them and moving on psychologically.

Laura Brown: I asked [human resources pro] Bucky Keady: Why does it hit so much harder [for women]? And in one second she said, “Because it took so much longer to get there. It took us so much longer to get into that room.” So many of us feel shame and wallow. But it’s futile. And you have a community, but you’re not going to find the community unless you put your hand up: Actually, me too. That happened to me as well. And then, God, that’s a help. That’s such a relief. But you have to speak up.

Whose story of being fired surprised you, or made you see their career differently?

KO: We were really struck by how many women hadn’t talked about it before. Katie Couric, for example, kept saying, Well, they didn’t renew my contract, and it was almost like a revelation in the conversation when I think it sort of dawned on her, like, Yeah, I guess I was getting fired! We [also] talked to a sports agent, Lindsay Colas, who’s brilliant and who literally got Brittney Griner out of prison in Russia, and another client called her after she got Brittney out of jail and said [something to the effect of], “You haven’t been paying enough attention to us, we’re going to go with a different agency!”

So fired looks different for everybody: the language around it, the experience, the aftermath. But the universal thing is you feel like shit.

LB: One of my favorite stories was from Tarana Burke; she was running an organization in Philly and she was comfortable there. Then she got fired. And in all this time, me too was sort of lying dormant in her head. So when she was fired, she was then allowed to open her mind to proceed with that. She said, I kept thinking, You’ve been carrying other people’s visions to fruition for too long. And she was able to carry her own.

How much did you know about Oprah’s firing [from her job as co-anchor of the Baltimore evening news] before interviewing her?

LB: We knew the story a little, but again—it wasn’t the [big narrative] about her. She should be on the fired Mt. Rushmore with Steve Jobs and Mike Bloomberg and everyone else! When we talked to her, her memory of the firing was like muscle memory. It was so visceral. [“I really have never talked about it,” says Oprah in the book.] She remembered what the managing director of the TV network was drinking. She remembered it was April Fools’ day, and she thought it was an April Fools’ joke. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, she remembered all these things because sadly—it’s almost like with Instagram comments when you remember the negative one and you forget all the nice ones. And Oprah got upset about it anew, but she was us. She was ashamed to tell her dad, she was ashamed she lost her job. But her story reminds you that [getting fired] fires up your dreams too.

KO: If it hadn’t happened to her, she would’ve never been in the prime position to be put up for that talk show.

LB: Oprah told us, The setback is a setup. It’s so tidy, but it’s absolutely true: That thing that knocks you down can spring you back.

FOLLOW THE METEOR

Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend?
Sign up for your own copy, sent Tuesdays and Thursdays.

[email protected]