Well, it’s been a little over a year since I last sent a Substack email. Writing a weekday morning news roundup for Reason takes up all my newsletter-writing zeal, I suppose. But before 2021 ends—and I know, I’m down to the wire here—I want to send out a little update on the most significant things I’ve worked on in the past year.
First & foremost, this guy:
Dylan was born in October. I truly enjoyed pregnancy and am enjoying motherhood even more. Both my husband and I have been lucky enough to be on leave from work the past few months. And any worries I had about not finding babies that cute have been assuaged… while any delusions I had about being the more chill parent have been thoroughly dismissed. Sigh.
At Reason, I got to continue covering daily news from a libertarian perspective with the Reason Roundup (which colleagues have been filling in on during my maternity leave) while also exploring some subjects in more depth.
Among other things, I tried to burst another media-created myth surrounding hate crimes, learned a lot about antitrust law (and where Democrats and Republicans are both trying to go wrong with it), delved into the hysterics of net neutrality guru Tim Wu (now a member of Biden’s National Economic Council), continued covering the plight of the founders of Backpage (whose trial started in September and—after a mistrial was declared—will resume again next year), stayed on top of Section 230 battles and FOSTA outcomes, and looked at the history of carceral feminism.
Do We Really Need New Anti-Asian Hate Crime Laws? A holistic look at the data shatters the narrative about bias-based violence.
The Bipartisan Antitrust Crusade Against Big Tech — How reactionary politicians are using monopoly concerns as cover to pursue pre-existing political agendas
Tim Wu, Biden's New Tech Guru, Is Deeply Wrong About What Makes the Internet Great - In many professional arenas, Wu's swings and misses would have consequences. In Wu's case, it landed him an advisory role in the Biden administration.
Will Feminists Please Stop Calling the Cops? The women's liberation movement has gotten tied to mass incarceration. It needs to break free.
FOSTA's Failure: The 2018 Sex Trafficking Law Has Been Worse Than Useless So Far - The only thing FOSTA has done is chill speech and make catching sex traffickers more difficult.
Biased Testimony in Backpage Case Triggers Mistrial - Judge said she has concerns that the government crossed the line several times.
The pandemic still made in-person speaking events sparse, but I was able to appear on a virtual SXSW panel (“Section 230 and the Future of Internet Censorship,” with tech policy greats Eric Goldman, Emma Llanso, and Lawrence G. Walters) and to talk about antitrust law and the war on Big Tech in a number of places, including CSPAN.
I was also too busy to do much freelancing last year, but I did write an entry on sex work for Libertarianism.org’s Encyclopedia of Libertarianism and an essay about libertarian feminism for FreedomFest’s online forum.
Feminists for Liberty—a group I co-run with Kat Murti—had a booth at Freedomfest this year and helped organize several panels, including a great mainstage discussion on libertarian feminism, featuring Avens O’Brien, Naomi Wolf, Maggie McNeil, Melissa Mann, and Brittany Hunter. I also spoke on a couple Reason panels and two panels about sex work and sex trafficking. You can listen to the latter panels—put on by SWOP Behind Bars and Decriminalize Sex Work—here and here, and watch the SWOP panel (“DecriminaLIES ”) here.
We did some other cool stuff with Feminists for Liberty this year, too, including a series of videos featuring me & Kat talking libertarian feminist basics, a series of virtual panels (F4LChats) featuring some of our favorite contemporary libertarian feminists, and a second year of our feminism + freedom video contest. The group has been on a bit of a hiatus recently (Kat also had a baby last year, so we’ve both been a bit preoccupied) but have some cool things in the works for 2022.
Also in the works: Returning to work next week (oh my! Will be glad to be back but also loathe to leave Dylan in the care of anyone else, even if it is the best of all possible options — a trusted family member who lives nearby). An upcoming feature about financial institutions and the future of porn. Probably more stuff about antitrust and Section 230 and “human trafficking”, because God help us those battles going away.*** A series of political journalism lectures, with Swin, at the University of Cincinnati.
Speaking of Cincinnati, we’re continuing, for now, to postpone our return to DC. Swin and I truly love D.C. (I know, I know). But being around a lot of family is so important now that we’ve got a baby, and also… we’ve got accustomed to space and non-exorbitant rent and reasonable responses to the pandemic (thanks, Ohio!).
I may or may not sent another Substack email before next December. But in the meantime, thanks for reading, folks! Here’s hoping for a bright, peaceful, healthy, and fruitful 2022 for us all.
Cheers,
Elizabeth
*** What else should I write about in 2022? Send me your suggestions! You can email me story ideas here or through encrypted mail at enb@protonmail.com.