Roxane Gay Quote
When I get my makeup done for television appearances while I am promoting a book or when I am asked to comment on pop culture or the political climate, I feel like I’m wearing a mask I have no right to wear. The makeup feels far thicker than it really is. I feel like people are staring at me, laughing at me for daring to think I could do anything to make myself more presentable. And I remember how I felt the one time I tried to look pretty for someone, how it wasn’t enough. The first chance I get, I scrub the makeup off. I choose to live in my own skin.
Roxane Gay
When I get my makeup done for television appearances while I am promoting a book or when I am asked to comment on pop culture or the political climate, I feel like I’m wearing a mask I have no right to wear. The makeup feels far thicker than it really is. I feel like people are staring at me, laughing at me for daring to think I could do anything to make myself more presentable. And I remember how I felt the one time I tried to look pretty for someone, how it wasn’t enough. The first chance I get, I scrub the makeup off. I choose to live in my own skin.
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About Roxane Gay
Gay is the Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University. She was an assistant professor at Eastern Illinois University for four years before joining Purdue University as an associate professor of English, where she was tenured. In 2018, she left Purdue to become a visiting professor at Yale University. She joined Rutgers in 2022.
Gay is a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times, founder of Tiny Hardcore Press, essays editor for The Rumpus, and the editor for Gay Mag, which was founded in partnership with Medium.