Catherine Rampell

Doug Emhoff has been called many things in recent years: Second Gentleman. "Goofy dad." "Crappy Jew." But perhaps his most appropriate title: Progressive Sex Symbol.

Move over, Ryan Gosling. The modern female fantasy is embodied by the man who might soon become our first First Gentleman. Emhoff appears to be a genuine mensch with an impressive career. He's smitten with his wife and supports her ambitions, as is obvious from his convention speech and their sweet interactions on the campaign trail. But most important for this sexy sobriquet: Emhoff is secure enough with his own masculinity to sometimes prioritize his wife's ambitions over his own.

What. A. Hunk.

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As Emhoff once told a South Korean newspaper: "Lifting women up so that they can carry out important roles is a very manly thing."

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What do women want? To be valued and supported as much as they deserve, both privately and in public. On that score, Emhoff looks like a dreamboat.

--Rampell, Catherine. "Doug Emhoff, modern-day sex symbol," The Washington Post, August 23, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/08/23/emhoff-harris-sex-symbol/.

Glynnis MacNicol

Amazingly, it took me some time to realize the reason I loved Phryne [Fisher of Miss Fisher's Mysteries] and continually returned to her, was not just the exquisite clothes, or the perfect Louise Brooks hair, or the fact that no matter how many times I watched an episode I could never remember the plot and so it always somehow seemed new. It was because she was a grown-up. She was not getting married. She was not having children ("I don't understand the appeal," she likes to say). Her power was not in her potential to be matched up. Her power was her. Full stop. It was so satisfying. 

I think often about how the best stories we have about women outside of marriage and motherhood are almost always about women detectives. Their lives alone, literally and figuratively, are not enough to support what we understand as narrative, and so the most basic, most recognizable narrative is attached to them: whodunnit. In this extremely formalized structure, they are allowed to float along, being messy, or complicated, or elderly, or fashionable. We understand their purpose. Phryne’s real purpose, of course, is to live well, and love well, and do exactly what she pleases. 

 I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself (2024), p. 145-6.