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? Perhaps,
We are having an ongoing and critical conversation about race in America. The question on many minds, the question that is certainly on my mind, is how do we prevent racial injustices from happening?...
Until visiting Haiti, I had no idea what poverty really was or the difference between relative and absolute poverty. To see poverty so plainly and pervasively left a profound mark on me.
Trayvon Martin is neither the first nor the last young black man who will be murdered because of the color of his skin. If there is such a thing as justice for a young man whose life was taken too soo...
To read narrowly and shallowly is to read from a place of ignorance, and women writers can’t fix that ignorance no matter what kind of books we write or how those books are marketed.
This is the woman who brought us the idea of living our best life, of becoming our most authentic selves. And yet. In 2015, Winfrey bought a 10 percent stake in Weight Watchers, an investment of $40 m...
This is fiction, and if people cannot be flawed in fiction there’s no place left for us to be human.
This is a book about my body, about my hunger, and ultimately, this is a book about disappearing and being lost and wanting so very much, wanting to be seen and understood. This is a book about learni...
These pictures from the photo albums of my childhood are artifacts of a time when I was happy and whole. They are evidence that, once, I was pretty and sometimes sweet.
These kids didn’t know how to read so I got them dictionaries, and because they were too shy to discuss literacy in meetings, they would catch me walking across campus or in my office and whisper, I n...
There is something about the gaunt faces and sharply angled bodies of anorexic girls that at once attracts and repulses me. I wonder what holds their bodies together. I envy the way their flesh is str...
There are years and years of my life I can’t remember a thing about. A family member will say, Remember the time [insert significant family moment], and I stare blankly, with no recollection of these...
There are injustices great and small, and even if we can only fight the small ones, at least we are fighting. Too
There are all kinds of television shows and movies about women but how many of them make women recognizable? There
The thing is, I am not at all sure that feminism has ever suggested women can have it all. This notion of being able to have it all is always misattributed to feminism when really, it’s human nature t...
Or they say, I know you don't like hugs, but I'm going to hug you anyway, and I have to dodge their incoming bodies as politely as I can. Why do we view the boundaries people create for themselves as...
Many people are privileged, and again, it's easy to resent that because the level of privilege expressed in the show reminds us that sometimes, success really starts with where you come from.
Many feminist communities use trigger warnings, particularly in online forums when discussing rape, sexual abuse, and violence. By using these warnings, these communities are saying, This is a safe sp...
I’m not sure what’s more of a pain in my ass—being black or being a woman. I’m happy to be both of these things, but the world keeps intervening.
It's scary believing that you, as you are, could ever be enough.