Rachel Hoge

Don’t you all see how fun this is? I wanted to cry out. Instead, I whispered, “Yeah, b-b-books are weird,” and hid Junie B. Jones in my backpack. My classmates treated books the way I sometimes treated Girl Scout girls: with cold, eight-year-old contempt.

The clothes I wear allow others to see beyond my stutter, encouraging them to discard any negative connotations they might have about my disability.

Whether they realize it or not, men’s entitlement by approaching women to comment on their bodies in public spaces is a perpetuation of rape culture.