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Good morning,
This past Sunday was International Women’s Day. And this year, instead of writing about the state of the world—which you already know—I want to talk about the women who built this.
PROVOKED launched about 12 months ago. I was 65. I had a vision, a WordPress login, and an embarrassing amount of nerve. What I didn’t have was a team. What I also didn’t have was any guarantee this would work.
That changed fast.
Abby Heugel came on as Managing Editor and promptly became the person who keeps the whole operation from going sideways—and frequently keeps me from going sideways with it.
The writers who showed up in the beginning and are still around took a chance on something that didn’t yet exist. Aileen, Beth, Linda, Madeleine, Melissa S., Melissa G., Sheryl, Wendee—they wrote for an audience that was just getting lift-off, trusted the voice we're still defining, and helped make PROVOKED real before it had any right to be.
Some of those early pieces are still among our most-read. That’s not luck. That’s them.
And then there’s you. Our 99 percent female audience. That number doesn't surprise me. It humbles me. More than 20,000 women showing up for something that's still becoming itself. Nothing makes me prouder.
I spent nearly a decade living in Russia. Whatever the politics, whatever the era—the women there do the heavy lifting. They work, they manage, they hold everything together with very little acknowledgment and no mythology around it. I think about them often.
This week we’re in the company of women who refused to wait for permission—Sotomayor, Cochrane, the late bloomers who launched businesses at 50 on grit alone, and Julia Child, who took up her own kind of space.
Their message, and ours, is simple: Don’t be a bystander.
This issue is for all of you.
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CULTURE
Sonia Sotomayor’s Message Right Now: Don’t Be a Bystander
BY JENNIFER GREEN
What does Sonia Sotomayor want the next generation to understand about power, responsibility, and citizenship? At a recent appearance, the Supreme Court justice reflected on the lessons that shaped her—from growing up in the Bronx to writing children’s books about courage, difference, and participation. The message is clear: Democracy depends on people who care enough to show up.
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Julia Child Used All the Butter. She Meant All of It.
BY ABBY HEUGEL
Julia Child was the OG food whisperer. She laughed, drank martinis at lunch, and dropped chickens on the floor. And boy, did she love butter. In a world that tries to convince women that hunger is a weakness, she took up space and reminded us it wasn’t. READ MORE
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LIFE
BY SHERYL NANCE-NASH
The startup world still favors young male founders. Women over 50 stopped waiting for permission and started building anyway. From luxury eyewear to wellness supplements to leadership companies—they’re not leaning into structures that were never built for them. They’re building entirely new ones. Meet the women rewriting what a founder looks like. READ MORE
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TAKE NOTE
Timely and worth your attention.
🔪 Kay Scarpetta has been solving murders on the page since 1990. Twenty‑nine novels. One of crime fiction’s most formidable protagonists. It took 36 years to get her on screen. A male detective would’ve had a streaming deal by book three. Now Nicole Kidman is playing her. Season one just dropped on Prime Video. And the best part? Jamie Lee Curtis plays her sister. The wait was predictable. The casting is the surprise plot twist.
📺 Taylor Sheridan's The Madison drops March 14 on Paramount+—Michelle Pfeiffer as a 65-year-old matriarch who says, "I have a very small window to feed this," gesturing to her heart. For the first time, Sheridan handed an entire series to a female director: Christina Alexandra Voros, 48. Sheridan isn't known for writing real women. Watch it. Then decide if he's finally learning.
📚 The Women's Prize for Fiction longlist landed this week—and for the first time in a while, it feels like the list is actually paying attention; winners include The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans, and Heart the Lover, by Lily King. We picked our own winners this week to celebrate all women this month. See below.
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WHAT WE'RE READING—International Women's Day Edition
Four books about power, silence, and the stories women are finally telling out loud.
📖 How to Kill a Witch: The Patriarchy's Guide to Silencing Women by Zoe Venditozzi and Claire Mitchell
A furious, funny, deeply researched look at Scotland’s witch trials that reads less like history and more like a live wire running straight into the present. The authors refuse to treat witch hunts as superstition and instead expose them as a system designed to control women’s bodies, labor, and speech. What lingers is the throughline—from witch prickers and show trials to modern credibility, gaslighting, and online silencing. I finished it feeling both gutted and galvanized. —Susan
📖 Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
The world was designed around a male default. Caroline Criado Perez proves it with data so precise it will make you furious about things you used to think were coincidence.
📖 The Story of a Heart by Rachel Clarke
One donated heart becomes a devastating and quietly radical meditation on medicine, grief, and whose lives we decide are worth saving.
📖 The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
Winner of the prestigious 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction. A gothic slow burn about desire, possession, and the dangerous stories women inherit—and eventually refuse.
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WHO WAS SHE?
The women history forgot—or tried to.
She Was Told to Step Aside. She Scaled Instead.
BY MARGIE ZABLE FISHER
Investors wanted the company—but not the woman who built it. Josephine Cochrane kept control anyway. The machine she protected now hums in millions of kitchens. READ MORE
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READER SPOTLIGHT
“This is perfect. I watched the first season but couldn’t watch anymore. I don’t know if it’s laziness, contempt, or something deeper, but it’s insulting to see women written as nothing but scenery. I won’t waste my time on something that demeans every female character. “ — HD on Landman’s Women: A Real Oilman’s Wife Responds Want to be featured next? Comment on your favorite piece—we read them all.
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In Case You Missed It
PROVOKED is now on Substack in addition to our website and this newsletter.
PROVOKED Off-Script is a peek behind the curtain—the conversations we have in the editing room, why we chose an article to run, the reader reactions that lingered, and the aftermath—the good, the messy, and the noisy.
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🛍️ Some links in this newsletter are affiliate or sponsored links. If you buy something we recommend, we may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you. Every product is independently selected and obsessed over by our team.
✍️ Are you a writer? Got an unapologetic POV? We’re looking for freelancers with a distinct voice. Pitch Us, We're Ready!
📝 Missed a Thursday drop? All of our past newsletters are waiting for you right here.
⌨️ Our newsletter and articles are written by Susan and the talented writers of PROVOKED. Get to know the women behind them here.
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