A Love Letter to the Sane Women Holding It Down

You're not alone. There are millions of us. The algorithms just don’t know what to do with us because we don't fit neatly into a box.

I’ve been wanting to write this for a while because, more often than not, I find myself doomscrolling, screaming “NOT ALL WOMEN!” It seems like most of the women represented in media are, for lack of a better word, insane. I blame the algorithms for elevating the craziest of us. So this is for you—the woman reading this who has been quietly holding it together while the world loses its collective mind.

I see you. And here’s what I know about you, even though we’ve probably never met:

You don’t fit neatly into a box. You’re not a tradwife and you’re not a girlboss. You’re not a Karen and you’re not a pick-me. You’re not Madonna and you’re not a whore, in fact, you might even be a reformed slut living your dream life in the suburbs (heyo). Many of you have kids and aging parents. Maybe you’re the breadwinner but don’t believe that makes your husband a “cuck” as nihilistic podcasters who don’t know shit about shit would have you believe. Maybe you’re divorced or a single parent. You’re balancing work life and home life imperfectly while you drive your kids to activities and your parents to doctors’ appointments. At the end of the day, you just want to escape into a true crime podcast or something mindless or a good book on tape while you have a glass of wine or an herbal tea and fold the laundry.

There are millions and millions of us. We’re at the soccer games and the PTA meetings and the office and the grocery store and the school board meetings we never thought we’d attend because not long ago we were dancing on bars. We’re the women who still read books and have real friendships and know how to talk about politics and sports and give great recommendations for podcasts and skin products and restaurants. We’re the moms who let our kids play outside and the wives who actually adore their husbands and the professionals who earned their positions and don’t need to be on a panel about it.

And a criminal number of you are single women, too. You’re my heroes because you’re the ones navigating this alone, without a husband to vent to at the end of the day or kids to distract you from the relentless insanity. You’re out here building a life on your own terms in a culture that either pities you or tells you you’re a girlboss who doesn’t need anyone, and neither of those is true.

You just haven’t sold your soul for a ring or a roommate. You’re holding the line with no backup, and honestly that might be the loneliest version of sane there is. So, I see you too. Especially you.

You might’ve voted for Obama and then Trump and then felt weird about both. Or maybe you didn’t vote at all because the choices felt like picking between food poisoning and a house fire. Maybe you used to call yourself a feminist until feminism stopped meaning “women are capable adults” and started meaning something you didn’t recognize.

You believe in science, but you also believe that a woman is an adult human female, and you’re tired of those two things being treated as contradictory. You think men and women are different—not better or worse, just different—and that acknowledging this isn’t evidence of your “internalized misogyny.” Maybe you have kids, maybe you don’t. Either way, you think kids should be allowed to be kids. You think comedy should be funny. You think people should be judged by their character and not sorted into an endless spreadsheet of identities and oppressions.

These are not radical positions. These are the positions of a sane person. But sanity can feel lonely right now. You just need to know that you’re not alone. I promise you, you’re not, and my inbox is evidence of that. So is my real life, which is filled with women to busy for the bullshit.

I see you biting your tongue at the dinner party when someone says something so disconnected from reality that you briefly wonder if you’re the one who’s lost it. You haven’t. But I know it doesn’t always feel that way when you’re the only one in the room not nodding along.

I see you at the school event, smiling politely while moms discuss why so-and-so is a fascist and anyone who likes him is a Nazi and they assume that everyone around them feels the same way.

I see you at work, sitting through the training, clicking through the slides, knowing that if you said out loud what you’re thinking quietly, your career would be over by lunch. So you don’t say it. You go home and you scream into the void of a group chat with the four other women you trust, and even there, you half-wonder if someone will screenshot it.

I see you doom-scrolling at midnight, reading the news and thinking: “Am I crazy, or is everyone else?”

You’re not crazy. You’re a busy normie woman trying to take care of your life, your kids or parents or both, give your marriage the attention it deserves, and get workout in.

You might be sleep-deprived and running on coffee and cortisol and the fumes of whatever willpower you have left, but you are not crazy. You’re reasonable in an unreasonable world.

That’s the thing nobody talks about—the loneliness of being a reasonable normie in a world of radicalized lunatics. I started Dumpster Fire almost seven years ago because I couldn’t stop noticing how insane everything had gotten and I needed somewhere to say it out loud, but mostly because I was lonely. I was living in Los Angeles and I truly felt like I was going insane as all the women around me were knitting pink pussy hats and preparing for their war on masculinity.

I didn’t set out to build a community, I set out to not lose my mind. All I needed was somewhere to vent. It turns out a lot of you were needing the same thing! And here’s what I’ve realized after almost 300 episodes of pointing at the absurdity: It’s normie women (and men of course—but this piece is for the ladies) who are the backbone of society.

You’re the ones emailing me at 2 a.m., saying, “I thought I was the only one.” You’re the ones keeping your families sane, keeping your friendships in tact, keeping your workplaces functional, keeping your homes and yards beautiful, keeping your communities together—all while being told that everything you believe is wrong and everything you see with your own eyes isn’t real.

You’re doing this with no recognition and no permission and no cultural support. There is no magazine for you. There is no TV show that represents you. This doesn’t make you a victim, it just is what it is right now. There is no Roseanne so instead my husband and I just laugh at short-form videos that best represent the insanity of being a parent, sexist memes about being married, and pro-America AI slop.

The algorithms don’t know what to do with you because you don’t fit in a demographic bucket. You’re not angry or chaste enough for right-wing media and you’re not obedient or queer enough for left-wing media and you’re too smart for whatever the hell is happening on The View.

You’re the woman who can hold two thoughts in her head at the same time: That the world is a dumpster fire AND that life is still beautiful and funny and worth showing up for. And you keep showing up. Day after day after day.

Being able to hold that contradiction is maturity and I understand at times, this can feel like exile. But every sane woman I know eventually arrives at the same place: zero fucks. You’re free. And you’re powerful. You don’t need representation from a culture that’s lost the plot. You don’t need a movement. You don’t need a hashtag. You don’t need to be validated by people who can’t define the word “woman.” You just need to know you’re not alone.

So here’s my promise to you: I’m going to keep showing up, too. In my own little ways. It’s not much and I wish I could do more but I’ll keep writing stuff like this. I’ll keep talking to interesting, often unknown people on my podcast Walk-Ins Welcome. Twice a week on Dumpster Fire, even though I suck a makeup and I’m a writer who hates being on camera, I’ll continue making fun of the things that deserve to be made fun of, and reminding you (and myself) that life is absurd and that’s actually kind of the point and that men are pretty awesome and so are you. I’m going to keep making burgers out of sacred cows because levity will get us through this.

And when it gets heavy—and it does get heavy, trust me, I’ve wanted to quit this thing more times than I can count—I’m going to remember that there’s a woman out there reading this who needed to hear that she’s not crazy. That her instincts are right. That millions of sane women are out there, even when it feels like they’re not. They’re just busy.

We’re out there. We’re holding it down. Normies will save America. We just have to be reminded we’re not alone. I promise you—you’re not!

I love you ladies.

WOMEN!!!!!!

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If this letter found you, send it to one woman who needs it.

You know who she is.