Rebecca Traister


Rebecca Traister is an American author and columnist. Traister is a writer-at-large New York magazine and its website The Cut, and a contributing editor at Elle magazine. Traister wrote for The New Republic from February 2014 through June 2015. Traister regularly appears on cable TV news, commenting on feminism and politics.

Early life and education

Born in 1975 to a Jewish father and Baptist mother, Traister was raised on a farm. She attended Germantown Friends School in Philadelphia and Northwestern University. After college, she moved to New York City.

Writing and awards

Traister's first book, the non-fiction Big Girls Don't Cry, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2010, and the winner of the Ernesta Drinker Ballard Book Prize in 2012. One of the key arguments in the book is that 2008 was the year, "in which what was once called the women's liberation movement found thrilling new life" because of the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.
Traister's second non-fiction book, All the Single Ladies, has been referred to as a followup to the first. Gillian Whitemarch of The New York Times described it as a "well-researched, deeply informative examination of women’s bids for independence, spanning centuries." In 2018, Traister published her third non-fiction book, Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger.

Awards and recognition

Traister received a "Making Trouble / Making History Award" from the Jewish Women's Archive in 2012 at its annual luncheon. Longtime activist Gloria Steinem was the presenter.
In 2012, Traister received a Mirror Award for Best Commentary in Digital Media for two essays that appeared in Salon, and one that was published in The New York Times.

Private life

In 2011, Traister married Darius Wadia, a public defender in Brooklyn. The couple lives in New York, with their two daughters.

Works