Caitlin Flanagan
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Caitlin Flanagan began her magazine-writing career, in 2001, with a series of extended book reviews about the conflicts at the very heart of modern life—specifically, modern domestic life as it is lived by professional-class women. Flanagan quickly established herself as a highly entertaining social critic unafraid to take on self-indulgence and political correctness, and her essays provide penetrating and witheringly funny observations about the sexes and their discontents.
Flanagan's Atlantic articles have been named as finalists for the National Magazine Award seven times, and her essay “Confessions of a Prep School College Counselor,” which ran in September 2001, was included in the 2002 compilation of Best American Magazine Writing. Her work has also been included in Best American Essays 2003 and Best American Magazine Writing 2003. She is the author of the book To Hell With All That—an exploration, based on her Atlantic articles, of the lives of modern women.
Born and raised in Berkeley, California, Flanagan earned a B.A. and an M.A. in art history from the University of Virginia.
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Getty / The Atlantic Go Ahead, Laugh at Their Expense
The mad king and his courtiers learned a lot about COVID-19.
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AP / Getty / Arsh Raziuddin / The ... Will Democrats Fail the Amy Coney Barrett Test?
If the judge’s faith has put limits on her talent and ambition, there are few signs of it.
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Jean-François Rault / Sygma / Getty / The ... I Actually Read Woody Allen’s Memoir
Why Hollywood accepted the director for so long. And why it turned on him.
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Caitlin Flanagan / The Atlantic I Thought Stage IV Cancer Was Bad Enough
Then came a pandemic during the presidency of Donald Trump.
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Getty / The Atlantic You Thought You Were Free, but History Found You
The 2020 commencement speech you’ll never hear
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Kirsty Wigglesworth / AP Meghan and Harry Overplayed Their Hand
Megxit is the most complicated, self-involved, grandiose, shortsighted, letter of partial, fingers-crossed resignation in history.
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Wilson Webb Little Women’s Real Feminist Problem
The film reveals that there was, and is, something powerful about domestic life, and that women are particularly attracted to it.
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Win McNamee / Reuters Losing the Rare in ‘Safe, Legal, and Rare’
Coined by Bill Clinton, the phrase was an inspired way to bring together a range of abortion supporters under a now-abandoned umbrella.
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Erik McGregor / LightRocket / Carolyn Van Houten ... The Dishonesty of the Abortion Debate
Why we need to face the best arguments from the other side
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Lucas Jackson / Reuters Matt Lauer’s Woman Problem
The allegations against the Today show host have disgusted and unsettled me like few others in the #MeToo era.
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Noam Galai / Getty Caroline Calloway Isn’t a Scammer
Her Instagram account reads like Brideshead Revisited meets Twilight meets Vanity Fair magazine circa 1988, when greed was good and having money was a golden superpower.
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Mary Calvert / Reuters Ilhan Omar’s Opportunity
The Minnesota congresswoman could take a bolder stand for some of her most vulnerable constituents.
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Steve Marcus / Reuters My Father’s Gun
Americans have turned weapons of war into consumer goods.
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Regis Duvignau / Reuters Tarantino’s Most Transgressive Film
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood celebrates values that have been repeatedly dismissed as dangerous and outdated.
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Loren Elliott / AFP / Getty Christ in the Camps
Migrant children are suffering. Christians need to help.
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Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP The Fury of the Prep-School Parents
An elite-college education is one of the few expensive things that is for sale, but that not everyone is allowed to buy.
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New Studio The Problem With HR
For 30 years, we’ve trusted human-resources departments to prevent and address workplace sexual harassment. How’s that working out?
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Getty A High-School Porn Star’s Cry for Help
When did we lose the ability to interpret the signs of a girl in bad trouble?
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Gretchen Ertl / Reuters They Had It Coming
The parents indicted in the college-admissions scandal were responding to a changing America, with rage at being robbed of what they believed was rightfully theirs.
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Mike Segar / Reuters The Art of a Monster
Michael Jackson’s music is a gift. What do we do with it now?
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