She was trying to disappear and she couldn’t. It is unbearable to want something so little and need it so much.
Salvation is certainly among the reasons I read.
Pointing out the many ways in which misogyny persists and harms women is not anger. Conceding the idea that anger is an inappropriate reaction to the injustice women face backs women into an unfair po...
One thing he had learned in this life—there were always barbarians at both sides of the gate. He
Nemeses aren’t born. They are made.
My body is treated like a public space. 62 Air travel is another kind of hell.
Milly is not, in fact, ugly, but she might as well be. She has a pretty face, which is the same thing as ugly when a woman is fat. In the complex calculus between men and women, Milly understands that...
Messud, for her part, had a sharp response for her interviewer. For heaven’s sake, what kind of question is that? Would you want to be friends with Humbert Humbert? Would you want to be friends with M...
Let me be clear: Team Peeta. I cannot fathom how one could be on any other team. Gale? I can barely acknowledge him. Peeta, on the other hand, is everything. He frosts things and bakes bread and is un...
It seems that, if something makes you feel better, it is a healthy option. Want to sleep all day? That’s okay. Drink too much? That can be a valid coping choice. Isolating yourself via a fear of the o...
It is startling to realize that even Oprah, a woman in her early sixties, a billionaire and one of the most famous women in the world, isn’t happy with herself, her body.
It is only an accident of birth that makes it possible for you to enjoy your lives the way you do. We were young. We had no idea what he meant. In
It is a powerful lie to equate thinness with self-worth. Clearly, this lie is damn convincing because the weight-loss industry thrives. Women continue to try to bend themselves to societal will. Women...
In July 2013, while in Zurich to attend Tina Turner’s wedding, Winfrey was informed by a store clerk at the Trois Pommes boutique that the purse she was interested in was too expensive for her. We don...
If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities. The relevant question isn’t Is this a potential friend for me? but Is this character alive?
If you are reading this essay, you have some kind of privilege.
I'm a bad man.
I struggle to accept that my body is a legislative matter.
I remember so little from high school, but in the past few years, as my profile as a writer has gotten more visible, I’ve started to hear from the kids I went to high school with and, oddly enough, th...
I finally recognized that I matter to the people in my life and that I have a responsibility to matter to myself and take care of myself so they don’t have to lose me before my time, so I can have mor...