Hi! I’m Zawn Villines.

I’m a writer, activist, mother, urban farmer, and perennial troublemaker. I believe that birth doesn’t have to be traumatic, motherhood doesn’t have to be exhausting and demoralizing, and marriage shouldn’t mean giving up your dreams or yourself. You probably found me because I’ve been writing and shouting about all three for years.

I spent 15 years as a full-time writer, specializing in legal and science journalism. I found, over and over again, that all of the research I read clarified the role of patriarchy and other oppressive systems in poor health and poor quality of life. In the legal system, domestic violence was both an entry point and a red flag, and women rarely got the help they deserved. So I started writing about feminism and maternal health, and that’s now my full-time job.

I’m tired of a world that talks about maternal exhaustion and suffering in the passive voice, as if it is inevitable or natural, and comes out of nowhere. Women and mothers are exhausted because men buy their free time with women’s unpaid, unacknowledged labor.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

I believe that men are good and competent, which means they can do better. My husband, a talented litigator and exceptional father who ensures our household division of labor is equitable, proves it’s possible. Inequity in marriage is a primary driver of patriarchy, and it’s a form of abuse. I rant about this and other things on my Facebook page. We’ve developed a nice little community there. Join us.

I publish a weekly newsletter that includes a feminist advice column, insights on living better even in a patriarchal society, and strategies for pushing back on regressive and sexist norms for motherhood and marriage. Paid subscribers gain access to the private, closed Facebook community and support group I offer.

I founded the Georgia Birth Advocacy Coalition as a legal and advocacy organization to end the oppressive norms that make giving birth more dangerous, traumatic, and awful than it needs to be. Georgia has the worst maternal mortality rate in the country, and the United States is the only nation in the world in which maternal mortality is rising. Obstetric violence is misogyny. Maternal mortality happens in large part because of racism and sexism. We have a right to demand better.

I love all plants, especially the hundreds of orchids and succulents who live with me. I rescue bugs, read everything I can get my hands on, and am obsessed with paper planning. I raise khaki Campbell ducks. I have a degree in philosophy, and have worked with primates and in wildlife rehabilitation.

I have three daughters: a young child, a toddler, and a beloved baby who died. I write a lot about infant loss.