Culture

My wrinkles are filled by plump instead of poison. As my svelte friends talk Botox, I can simply smile and not only because my face still allows it. Cosmetic surgery is ubiquitous with my fashion-forward skinny friends.

"A necessary read in these fraught times. Starting with the title essay, which went viral and inspired the ever-useful term “mansplaining,” Solnit writes powerfully about the ways in which power is wielded in today’s society, and brings awareness to the staggering inequalities that we wrestle with on a daily basis."

The fact that a woman's body may have changed after birth has been heavily capitalized upon by the diet and fitness industry, and we have been taught that every single mother desires to return to her previous body as soon as possible. We have been brainwashed, we have been inundated with it, and though it seems like many of us realize that it's a fictional story by now, the majority of the country still sees it as fact.

I have a lot of shit. I like all my shit. I have knick-knacks and bric-a-brac and tchotchkes — and other clever names for things that are really just shit.

Over those five years, I volunteered on hot summer days and rainy mornings. I stood in snow, wearing warm layers and fleece mittens. I volunteered beside women and men, many of them young, like me, but some older and wiser and living out a lifetime of experience on those sidewalks.

One of the consequences of sexism being so normalized in Western culture is that many people, women included, have a hard time recognizing 1) what it is, and 2) why it’s (still) a crisis.

Whether it’s during a job interview or standing up for yourself with a salesperson, if you already feel awkward in everything you do, you might as well go for the things you want and embrace the collateral awkwardness. It would be there anyway.

Sex at any age involves trust and self-exposure, but especially for adolescents just learning to trust themselves and their partners in relationships. When slut shaming exposes someone to intense humiliation and possibly further social ostracism, the emotional damage can be terrible.