Rebecca Traister (born 1975) is an American author. She is currently a writer-at-large for New York magazine and The Cut, and a contributing editor at Elle magazine.^[1] She wrote for The New Republic from February 2014 through June 2015.^[1][2] She appears on cable TV news frequently, commenting on feminism and politics.

Traister was raised on a farm, the daughter of a Jewish father and a Baptist mother.^[3] She attended Germantown Friends School and Northwestern University. After college, she moved to New York City.^[3]

Her first book, Big Girls Don't Cry (2010), was a New York Times Notable Book of 2010,^[4] and the winner of the Ernesta Drinker Ballard Book Prize in 2012.^[5] One of the key arguments of the book is that 2008 was the year "in which what was once called the women's liberation movement found thrilling new life" because of the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Her second book, All the Single Ladies (2016), has been referred to as a followup of the first, and presents, in the words of Gillian Whitemarch in The New York Times, a "well-researched, deeply informative examination of women’s bids for independence, spanning centuries."^[6] In 2018 she published a third book, Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger.

Traister received a "Making Trouble / Making History Award" from the Jewish Women's Archive in 2012 at its annual luncheon, where Gloria Steinem was the presenter.^[7][8]

In 2012, Traister received a Mirror Award for Best Commentary in Digital Media for two essays that appeared in Salon ("'30 Rock' Takes on Feminist Hypocrisy–and Its Own," and "Seeing 'Bridesmaids' is a Social Responsibility") and one that appeared in The New York Times ("The Soap Opera Is Dead! Long Live The Soap Opera!").^[9]

In 2011, Traister married Darius Wadia, a public defender in Brooklyn. They live in New York.^[10][11] The couple has two daughters.^[12]