Caitlin Flanagan
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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Illustration by Matt Chase Colleges Are Lying to Their Students
They aren’t teaching them “how to think.”
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Illustration by Nicole Licht The Timeshare Comes for Us All
I was a patsy, a sucker, a fool.
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Gary Null / NBCU Photo Bank / Getty Get That Senator a Cinnabon
Why stop at ditching the dress code?
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Illustration by Joanne Imperio / The Atlantic. Sources: … In Praise of Heroic Masculinity
Teach boys that strength can be a virtue.
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Ben Kothe / The Atlantic America’s Corporate Tragedy
A boy has died in a poultry processing plant, and a hashtag is no response.
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Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Getty. The Harry and Meghan Podcasts We’ll Never Get to Hear
“How to Write a Book by Yourself,” and other ideas for fresh new content
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Courtesy of Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke … Harry, Meghan, and the Men Who Hate Them
No wonder the couple left England
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Illustration by Gabriela Pesqueira. Sources: Hugo Burnand / … The Petulant King
Charles III can’t keep the myth of monarchy alive.
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Tristar Media / Getty; The Atlantic America’s Fire Sale: Get Some Free Speech While You Can
Freedom of expression isn’t the tool of the powerful; it’s the tool of the powerless.
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John J. Custer Where Do the Democrats Find These Guys?
A personal history of electoral losses
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Getty; Everett Collection; The Atlantic Hell Yeah, Tom Cruise
The seductions of Top Gun, a movie about a bunch of killing machines vrooming around
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The Atlantic; Antoine Antoniol / Getty Sheryl Sandberg and the Crackling Hellfire of Corporate America
Is this feminism?
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The Atlantic; Alamy I’m a Coastal Grandmother. Stop Appropriating Our Culture.
Young people on TikTok are trying to hijack my lifestyle.
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Illustration by Wayde McIntosh Joan Didion’s Magic Trick
What was it that gave her such power?
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Mikki Ansin / Getty What The New Yorker Didn’t Say About a Famous Writer’s Anti-Semitism
Why are Alice Walker’s vile beliefs about Jews treated so gently?
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Artwork by Johanna Bath The Things I Would Never Do
I’d survived two decades of cancer. But there was one loss I couldn’t accept.
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Illustration by Joanna Neborsky The Day I Got Old
It just suddenly happened, and there isn’t a sports car in the world I can buy to make it otherwise.
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Joanna Neborsky The Cancer Celebrities
Why I love Farrah Fawcett and hate Sheryl Crow
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Joanna Neborsky Tell Children the Truth
What I learned when I told my 5-year-old boys that I had cancer
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Illustration by Joanna Neborsky I’ll Tell You the Secret of Cancer
It’s been almost 20 years since my diagnosis, and I’ve learned quite a bit.
