Women in the Group Chat
On safe spaces
I will be sharing details for a Hiking & Writing retreat in the Scottish Highlands May 9-14 of 2026. My Substack community has priority for 48 hours before I share it on social media. We will have a small lodge entirely to ourselves in Cairngorms National Park, and we’ll spend our days hiking, swimming in wild lochs, exploring ruins and wildlife, feasting on delicious fare, and of course, writing. If you’re at all interested, be on the lookout for an upcoming announcement from me as space is limited to preserve the intimacy of the experience.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about group chats—specifically, after Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that Mike Waltz accidentally added him to a Signal thread where men casually discussed real-time war plans. I have loved ones in the intelligence community, so I understand, viscerally, just how reckless and dangerous that mistake was. Others, far more qualified, have dissected the national security implications at length. What lingers with me, though, is something more personal: the way group chats flatten the gravity of what’s being said. Watching grown men toss around emojis like schoolboys while discussing bombings—bombings that would inevitably take civilian lives—was deeply unsettling.
That revelation made me think about how the women in my life use group chats—how, increasingly, we’ve migrated to Signal, searching for an extra layer of protection. Long before this administration, my friends and I relied on these spaces for safety. When we went on dates, we shared our locations. When we felt trapped, unsure how to leave, we found solace in a thread of voices reminding us we weren’t alone. Even across distance, group chats were a lifeline, a way to commiserate in real-time when we couldn’t physically be together.
But over the past decade, I’ve felt a shift. The conversations have grown more urgent, more desperate. We fear for ourselves, for our daughters. We stockpile supplies and trade strategies. We make quiet promises—I’ll drive you across state lines if you can’t do it yourself—because we know the world we’re up against.
Women Talking Will you share your location? I have pepper spray. I’m afraid for my daughter. I can’t afford to leave him. You can stay with me. Did you read the news? No one believed her. I wouldn’t go there alone. I’m safe. Read this book. I bought each of us a copy. Have you stocked up on supplies? I have extra. Good for up to four years. My neck is coated in stress hives. The wine doesn’t help. We’re coming by later. Let’s go for a walk.
Women have been doing this for centuries—finding ways to commune, to share resources in secret. This isn’t new. We have always depended on one another for survival; it is, perhaps, our strongest survival strategy. But what feels different now, what feels terrifying, is how quickly we are moving backward. How easily we took for granted the rights our foremothers fought for under Roe v. Wade. How our group chats, once spaces for connection and camaraderie, have become hubs of quiet resistance, of whispered solidarity.
The men I know have group chats where they vent about job security or joke about the absurdity of this administration. The women I know have group chats where they fear for their physical safety. It is not, and never has been, the same.
P.S. If you enjoyed this essay, please click on the heart at the bottom or top of this e-mail. It helps others discover The Understory and brightens my day!
Monthly Writing Circle Updates
If you’re looking for a safe, communal writing space, our next writing circle is Thursday, April 17th at 7 PM CST. Every month, our Poetry as Medicine generative writing sessions offer a tender, open space to read and discuss the work of a specific poet, to write what needs to be expressed, and to share (if desired). These sessions are unrecorded for a reason—they are meant to be experienced in real time, together. These monthly sessions are a balm, a place of connection and vulnerability. They are open to all paid subscribers, and we would love to have you join us!
Below are the poets we’ll be exploring for the rest of this year:
Thursday, April 17th at 7 PM CST – Alberto Ríos
Tuesday, May 20th at 7 PM CST – Diane Seuss
Sunday, June 8th at 10 AM CST – Ilya Kaminsky
Sunday, July 20th at 7 PM CST - Danusha Lameris
Thursday, August 21st at 7 PM CST - Pádraig Ó Tuama
Monday, September 22nd at 7 PM CST - Maggie Smith
Sunday, October 26th at 10 AM CST - Danez Smith
Wednesday, November 12th at 7 PM CST - Naomi Shihab Nye
Tuesday, December 16th at 7 PM CST - Marie Howe
Danielle Coffyn: Mother Nature made the female and woman all that the great postwar author, Johanna Moosdorf, says of her in "Freundinnen" (Girlfriends):
Intellectual and artistic gifts.
Maturity in taking responsibility.
Selfless love and self-sacrifice.
Source of human culture.
Source of human intellect and love.
Mother Goddess to us all.
Johanna Moosdorf lost her husband and his blood kin during the genocide of the Third Reich, and Moosdorf's novels are rich in imagery about Third Reich artificial male aggression and misogyny and with sapphic love and Feminism as the polar opposite and effective remedy.
Misogynists are sick, sick puppies.
In Budapest, on the Dunacorso (Danube Prospect), women and children can pass unharassed and in free play and conversation, exactly the way Mother Nature meant for all persons to socialize and walk together.
I'd put up with a lot to have big cities with major boulevards safe for all persons, not least for children and for women.
It is a sick and perverse phenomenon that society forces women and children to fear for their safety.
As a long-loving husband, Dad of two Daughters, Paw Paw of a wonderful Granddaughter, I am one of your fans -- What you are communicating is very important.
Thanks, Danielle, as always for your insight. To anybody reading my comment, I cannot recommend Danielle's poetry groups enough. Because when you have a big heart like hers, it spills over into everything. We write, we laugh, we cry, we support each other.