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e63a6b8
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It has been suggested, more than once, that if you don't believe in trigger warnings, you aren't respecting the experiences of rape and abuse survivors. It has been suggested, more than once, that trigger warnings are unnecessary coddling. It is an impossible debate. There is too much history lurking beneath the skin of too many people. Few are willing to consider the possibility that trigger warnings might be ineffective, impractical, and ..
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Roxane Gay |
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170fa0c
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Trigger warnings aren't meant for those of us who don't believe in them, just like the Bible wasn't written for atheists. Trigger warnings are designed for the people who need and believe in that safety. Those of us who do not believe should have little say in the matter. We can neither presume nor judge what others might feel the need to be protected from.
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Roxane Gay |
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24d1e6f
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She didn't mind that my father was married and had a kid. She never expected much from him. She was the kind of woman who didn't expect much from life. They were well suited.
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Roxane Gay |
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492fd5a
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It is hard to write about happy things when you can never escape the kind of cold that sinks into your bones and stays there. I am in Siberia, I decide. I am comforted by thoughts of exile, cold solace, meditation, and inspiration born of emotional deprivation. It is all very dramatic.
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Roxane Gay |
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0be5878
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The word comes from the Latin word , to hunt. I find that cruel, to name something for that end which comes to pass.
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Roxane Gay |
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1d1d09b
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Mon corps est une cage. Mon corps est une que que je me suis fabriquee. Je suis encore en train de rechercher le moyen de m'en echapper.
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cage
citation
corps
hunger
quote
roxane-gay
échapper
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Roxane Gay |
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2d702e0
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Because I have so many deeply held opinions about gender equality, I feel a lot of pressure to live up to certain ideals. I am supposed to be a good feminist who is having it all, doing it all. Really, though, I'm a woman in her thirties struggling to accept herself and her credit score. For so long I told myself I was not this woman--utterly human and flawed. I worked overtime to be anything but this woman, and it was exhausting and unsust..
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Roxane Gay |
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665fc09
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What I remind myself, regularly, is this: the acknowledgement of my privilege is not a denial of the ways I have been marginalized, the ways I have suffered.
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Roxane Gay |
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47d1bdb
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He was so kind to me and never wanted anything from me but friendship. That was something of a revelation to me, that a young man could be kind.
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Roxane Gay |
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f6fec3f
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7. Surround yourself with women you can get sloppy drunk with who won't draw stupid things on your face if you pass out, and who will help you puke if you overcelebrate, and who will also tell you if you get sloppy drunk too much or behave badly when you are sloppy drunk.
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Roxane Gay |
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2927d50
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so she may know that she, in turn, will always be loved. It is important to show a child love in many forms, and this is the one good thing I have to offer, no matter how this child comes into my life.
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Roxane Gay |
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89b27d7
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Sometimes, when students are doing group work, I sneak a look at my own phone like I am in a cone of invisibility. I am part of the problem.
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Roxane Gay |
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def5865
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excuses
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Roxane Gay |
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107aa25
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It was not as easy to believe these truths as it was to know them.
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Roxane Gay |
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18b1e99
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Some serious Scrabble players are poor losers. I am a good loser. I love Scrabble so much I don't care if I lose. I also have to be a good loser because I lose a lot, so practicality plays a role.
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Roxane Gay |
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388bf8a
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This myth is like heels and purses--pretty but designed to SLOW women down.
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Roxane Gay |
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0596103
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Winter is more a state of being than a season, in this place. It takes hold for six or seven dark, cruel months. The cold becomes familiar.
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Roxane Gay |
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69fd09f
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And then I think about how fucked up it is to promote this idea that our truest selves are thin women hiding in our fat bodies like imposters, usurpers, illegitimates.
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Roxane Gay |
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3040dba
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At night, I have to face myself and all the ways I have failed.
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Roxane Gay |
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d6a0438
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I am hyperconscious of how I take up space. As a woman, as a fat woman, I am not supposed to take up space. And yet, as a feminist, I am encouraged to believe I can take up space.
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Roxane Gay |
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5df5a8c
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The United States as we know it was founded on the principle of inalienable rights, the idea that some rights are so sacrosanct not even a government can take them away. Of course, this country's founding fathers were only thinking of wealthy white men when they codified this principle, but still, it's a nice idea, that there are some freedoms that cannot be taken away. What this debate shows us is that even in this day and age, the rights ..
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Roxane Gay |
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578c41c
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I assumed that he was going to make fun of me because I had long become accustomed to people, men mostly, calling out cruelties from their cars, their bicycles, when they walked on by--letting me know exactly what they thought of my body.
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Roxane Gay |
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f1364a8
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I was so lonely I was willing to tolerate these relationships. The faint resemblance of human connection was enough. It had to be enough even though it wasn't.
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Roxane Gay |
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9ec82bd
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I loved that feeling, that I was interesting enough to break rules, to believe rules did not apply to me.
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Roxane Gay |
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d4b86ce
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I was always very high-strung about school for many reasons, not the least of which was a pressure to perform and the comfort of knowing that schoolwork, at least, was something in my control. I knew how to study and memorize and make sense of complicated things, as long as they had nothing to do with me.
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Roxane Gay |
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11bb7ad
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The less space they take up, the more they matter.
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Roxane Gay |
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848a025
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A good therapist knows you have to live in the house while you remodel.
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Roxane Gay |
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50ad79a
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more ambitious and focused because we've never had a choice. We've had to fight to vote, to work outside the home, to work in environments free of sexual harassment, to attend the universities of our choice, and we've also had to prove ourselves over and over to receive any modicum of consideration.
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Roxane Gay |
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fdcbad1
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I want to be able to hold the why in my hands, to dissect it or tear it apart or burn it and read the ashes even though I am afraid of what I will do with what I see there.
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Roxane Gay |
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062b2a6
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These sad stories will always weigh on me, though that burden lessens the more I realize who I am and what I am worth. 73 The thing is, though, loneliness, like losing control of my body, is a matter of accretion.
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Roxane Gay |
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24170e8
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He started talking about his marriage. I leaned across the table and pressed two fingers against his lips. 'Let's not do that. Let's not sit here and tell each other everything there is to know about who we once loved. I am tired of listening to men talk about their regrets.
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Roxane Gay |
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bc84620
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As a naturally shy person, I loved the anonymity of writing before my career took off. I loved how my stories didn't care about my weight. When I started publishing that writing, I loved that, to my readers, what mattered were the words on the page. Through writing, I was, finally, able to gain respect for the content of my character.
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feminist
writing
writing-craft
writing-life
writing-quotes
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Roxane Gay |
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571f37c
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I was swallowing my secrets and making my body expand and explode. I found ways to hide in plain sight, to keep feeding a hunger that could never be satisfied--the hunger to stop hurting.
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Roxane Gay |
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a8cd908
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Part of the reason relationships and friendships can be so difficult for me is because there is a part of me that thinks I have to get things just right. I have to say the right things and do the right things or I won't be liked or loved anymore. It's stressful, so then I engage in an elaborate attempt at being the best friend or girlfriend and get further and further away from who I really am, someone with a good heart, but also someone wh..
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Roxane Gay |
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f18a87c
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O my friend searching for an absurdity necessary to train the self to be tolerant . . . do not reconcile with anything except for this obscure reason. Do not regret a war that ripened you just as August ripens pomegranates on the slopes of stolen mountains." --MAHMOUD DARWISH"
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Roxane Gay |
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6d81867
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The idea of a secret that will be revealed always results in one of two scenarios: death and destruction, or self-discovery and recovery beyond our wildest dreams of unification. And in the greatest of sagas, both at the same time.
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Roxane Gay |
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49b59f4
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We live in a strange and terrible time for women. There are days when I think it has always been a strange and terrible time to be a woman. Womanhood feels more strange and terrible now because progress has not served women as well as it has served men. We are still stymied by the issues our forbears railed against. It is nothing less than horrifying to realize we live in a culture where the "paper of record" can write an article that comes..
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Roxane Gay |
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81bdf31
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Attending boarding school is how upper-middle-class girls run away, to be sure.
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Roxane Gay |
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0defb7c
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Left to my own devices at boarding school, I lost any semblance of control over what I put into my body. Suddenly, there were all kinds of food available to me.
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Roxane Gay |
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9f27fee
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The freedom of being able to eat, so extravagantly and without limit, offered me the only true pleasure I knew in high school.
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Roxane Gay |
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39f217b
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It's hard not to feel humorless, as a woman and a feminist, to recognize misogyny in so many forms, some great and some small, and know you're not imagining things. It's hard to be told to lighten up because if you lighten up any more, you're going to float the fuck away. The problem is not that one of these things is happening; it's that they are all happening, concurrently and constantly. These are just songs. They are just jokes. It's ju..
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Roxane Gay |
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8543321
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It was easier to lose myself in the virtual world than to try and put my life back together or face these people who thought they knew me. I was still broken and I liked how it felt to simply accept that everything was wrong and couldn't be set right. It felt good to not try and pretend.
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Roxane Gay |
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0bcc3a0
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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 continue to hunger.
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Roxane Gay |
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b58ddf7
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Because I questioned myself and my sanity and what I was doing wrong in this situation. Because of course I feared that I might be overreacting, overemotional, oversensitive, weak, playing victim, crying wolf, blowing things out of proportion, making things up. Because generations of women have heard that they're irrational, melodramatic, neurotic, hysterical, hormonal, psycho, fragile, and bossy. Because girls are coached out of he womb to..
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harassment
rape-culture
rape-survivor
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Roxane Gay |