Allison McCarthy

Marnell cannot throw a literary grenade into the conversation on abortion and then claim it’s “not political.”

“You’ll need to avoid splashing and kicking near the surface,” he said, warning that we’d only have 10 minutes in the water. Two of the guides would wait by the ladder to remove the snorkeling fins from our feet.

[CN: body dysmorphia] Sensory deprivation provided me with a way to relate to my body that was rooted in acceptance: This is me, this is what I feel like, and this is all OK.

From my earliest memories of splashing my siblings at the community swimming pool, I had an idea of what lifeguards looked like — young, tall, and lithe, with tanned limbs and form-fitting swimsuits meant to accentuate the athleticism of their bodies.

Faced with the threat of gun violence, what could a father do? Raise his voice.

In 2007, Kate Harding wrote, "I’ve noticed that a lot of the people I see writing confidently and persuasively about body acceptance are married or in solid long-term relationships… my god, it is hard to develop that confidence when you’re single and not happy about it, and the whole world is telling you the way to fix that is to make yourself prettier — and, of course, that a crucial component of becoming prettier is becoming as thin as you can possibly be, by any means necessary."

When compared to other teen female sitcom counterparts of her time — like Clarissa Darling of Clarissa Explains It All or Blossom Russo of Blossom — DJ seems like a missed opportunity for the writers to create a dynamic, free-spirited personality.

In the hopes of finding a starting point to engage the complexities of the feminist spiritual experience, I interviewed feminists of different faiths: Hindu, Muslim, Judaism, and Christianity. And their thoughtful, introspective responses to my questions on the reconciliation of feminist politics and religious practice left me wanting to learn even more.