By Alexandra MacAaron

The movie is nearly two and a half hours long, so I was prepared for an epic. I was also, to be honest, prepared to be disappointed. And I was wrong.

In this week’s Wednesday 5: Afghan Journalist Najiba Ayubi wins a ‘Courage in Journalism’ Award; a father’s well-intentioned letter to his young daughter about keeping a “man’s interest” turns controversial; the “Great Gatsby” film unearths a myriad of misrepresentations and stereotypes about the 1920s flapper; “Scandal,” as ridiculous as the plots are, works because of cast chemistry; and a poignant video re-imagines a world where hate crimes don’t exist.

In this week’s Wednesday 5: Women behind the lens at the recent Tribeca Film Festival; TV shows that hired no women writers in 2011-12; Jenna Lyons takes J.Crew from “ugly duckling to fashion arbiter”; a centenarian, Kathryn Wasserman Davis, dazzles us; and Saudi Arabia launches its first anti-domestic-violence campaign.

By Deborah Harkins

The (pleasant) challenge for 40-year-old director Kirsten Kelly: Mount a play involving 50 brides and 50 flight-suited, helicopter-dangling grooms on the stage of a 60-seat theater.

By Alexandra MacAaron

“I’m going to get into so much trouble for saying this,” says author Jean Hanff Korelitz. “I think women are more willing [than men] to keep multiple ideas in their heads at the same time. . . . We know that crazy humor and great sadness are bound up together, because that is the way many of us live our lives.”

By Diane Vacca

By the 1960s, Wonder Woman had been enervated and diminished. Her superpowers and provocative costume had been stripped away. No more daring exploits. But then Gloria Steinem brought her back with a bang.

Filmmaker Paige Morrow Kimball talks sexism in Hollywood; a documentary on Angela Davis documents the woman behind the activism; Margaret Thatcher’s notable “badass” moments; the loneliness of being the “boss-lady”; and a photographer captures the toys that make us happy.

By Stefania Amfitheatrof

Today’s trench coat is easily considered a woman’s secret outer weapon. It has the power to impart sexuality and danger without losing any of the irony the stars of the Hollywood classic films projected on the silver screen.

Ford wants us to “Leave Our Worries Behind” in (another) sexist ad; Tina Fey responds to her Internet critics with a hilarious comeback; the women have been “leaning in” for centuries before Sheryl Sandberg; Aretha Franklin turns 71; and Helen Mirren champions women in film, behind the camera.

Lily Tomlin’s back. Now we really can believe spring is coming.

By Diane Vacca

When Adolf Eichmann, a former officer in the SS, was captured in Argentina and taken to Jerusalem, “The New Yorker” tapped Arendt to cover his trial, one of the most sensational of the century. Arendt was a German Jew who had experienced firsthand the pain of exile and was compelled to flee the Nazi regime, first in Germany and later in France. No one anticipated that her reportage would result in a third exile—ostracism by most of the Jewish community.

By Elizabeth Hemmerdinger

“Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me” is an always-entertaining, often startling, paean to an often irascible, fiercely perfectionistic, always independent, long-lived woman who has no intention of leaving the followspot behind.

Here’s some bracing—in fact, thrilling—news from the nonprofit 10 x 10 Fund for Girls’ Education, producer of the new documentary “Girl Rising.” The film follows nine fiercely brave girls from nine countries—India, Nepal, Egypt, Peru, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Haiti, Ethiopia, and Sierra Leone. Despite staggering cultural and financial odds, these girls are insisting on getting an education—their only hope for a livable income and respect.

The constant barrage of scrutiny and criticism that women anchors and reporters face; Tina Fey runs the world (in case you didn’t know); male writers still outnumber female writers in major literary publications; an end to Women’s History Month?; and Sandra Day O’Connor on the high stakes of her history-making appointment to the Supreme Court.

By Alexandra MacAaron

On Sunday night, it wasn’t just that the inmates were running the asylum. Pre-adolescent boys had taken over the world—or at least an international television event that’s second only to the Super Bowl in viewership.