Donna Zuckerberg

Donna Zuckerberg (born 1987) is an American classicist and author. She is author of the book Not All Dead White Men, about the appropriation of classics by misogynist groups on the Internet. She was editor-in-chief of Eidolon, a classics journal, until its closure in 2020. She is a sister of Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Early life and education Zuckerberg was born in Dobbs Ferry, New York, in 1987 to a Jewish family. She is the third of four children. While completing her graduate studies, Zuckerberg wrote a food blog called "Sugar Mountain Treats". Zuckerberg was the founder and editor-in-chief of the online journal Eidolon, which published texts about classics that were not formal scholarship. Its authors included well-established classicists as well as new experts in the field.

Not All Dead White Men Zuckerberg's monograph, Not All Dead White Men: Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age, was published by Harvard University Press in October 2018. It has been described as "one of the first books to examine the online formation known as the Red Pill... also known as the manosphere". The "manosphere" includes numerous factions such as men's rights activists, pickup artists, and Men Going Their Own Way.

Zuckerberg's book also explores the popularity of stoicism within the manosphere. The book describes how Red Pill men use stoicism to support their belief in a dichotomy between the rational nature of males and the emotional nature of women. Zuckerberg argues that the point of the Red Pill discourse "is not for everything to hang together logically and to be totally immune to criticism. The point is to make people feel something—to make their audience feel validated and justified and scared and angry—and [get] any reaction [out of] them". In particular, Sarah Bond locates Zuckerberg within "a new generation of classicists, archaeologists, and premodern historians [who] have begun to realize that an insulated approach to scholarship is itself a form of privileged monasticism that we can no longer retreat to". It has been described as "a rare book from a university press that will probably be a crossover bestseller in non-academic markets". Matthew J. Sharpe, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Deakin University, has questioned whether Zuckerberg's portrayal of ancient Stoicism is wholly accurate.

Criticism of social media Zuckerberg has spoken out against social media, including Facebook, arguing that it has created a toxic culture and given men "with anti-feminist ideas [the opportunity] to broadcast their views to more people than ever before – and to spread conspiracy theories, lies and misinformation".

Personal life Zuckerberg lives in Silicon Valley with her two children. She was previously married to Harry Schmidt, a software engineer and product strategist at Wildfire.

Publications

Monographs

Articles and book chapters