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80eb17e
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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 ..
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Roxane Gay |
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267d7d0
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The thing about shame is that there are depths. I have no idea where the bottom of my shame resides.
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Roxane Gay |
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f9d0c8e
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stories and daydreaming. Sports were merely a distraction keeping me from what I really wanted to do.
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Roxane Gay |
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71d60d2
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I've always been a woman of contradiction. My true loves were and still are books and writing
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Roxane Gay |
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59b302d
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It never crossed my mind that I had a choice in the matter once I was told no.
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Roxane Gay |
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d19ba3d
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He has sometimes likened his style of writing to that of a medic performing a post-mortem on a raped child--whose job is to analyse the injuries, not to give vent to the rage that is felt." --SUSIE MACKENZIE ON J. G. BALLARD, GUARDIAN,"
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Roxane Gay |
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efa2a37
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also enjoyed that the orthopedic surgeon was incredibly attractive, knew it, and had the swagger of a man who is very good at what he does and very well compensated for that work. That was Saturday.
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Roxane Gay |
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8cdd4a3
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We have all manner of music glorifying the degradation of women, and damnit, that music is catchy so I often find myself singing along as my very being is diminished. Singers like Robin Thicke know "we want it." Rappers like Jay-Z use the word "bitch" like punctuation. Movies, more often than not, tell the stories of men as if men's stories are the only stories that matter. When women are involved, they are sidekicks, the romantic interests..
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Roxane Gay |
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2488ff2
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One of the many things I have always loved about writing, not to be confused with publishing, is that all you need is your imagination. It doesn't matter who you are, you can write. Your looks, especially, don't matter.
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writing
imagination
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Roxane Gay |
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aa9ad7a
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Later, I am still awake because I'm not very good at sleeping and I'm achy so I'm feeling tender toward him. Instead of nudging him awake, telling him to go home, I watch him sleep.
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Roxane Gay |
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6ce9478
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When you can't find someone to follow, you have to find a way to lead by example.
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Roxane Gay |
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56670ad
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For so long I've never talked about this. I suppose we should keep our shames to ourselves, but I'm sick of this shame. Silence hasn't worked out that well. Or maybe this is someone else's shame and I'm just being forced to carry it.
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Roxane Gay |
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1e82103
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I am always holding on to the hope of tomorrow.
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Roxane Gay |
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a1077f9
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In the New York Times Book Review Chloe Schama writes, "A plague of women's backs is upon us in the book cover world."
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Roxane Gay |
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5b234f0
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Are you from Detroit? I have been asked this question twenty-three times since moving to the area. In a month, I will stop counting, having reached a four-digit number. Shortly after that, I will begin telling people I have recently arrived from Africa. They will nod and exhale excitedly and ask about my tribe. I don't know that in this moment so there is little to comfort me. I shake my head.
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Roxane Gay |
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15b4176
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The girl-woman singer died in her flat, alone in bed. Too many people said, "It was to be expected," because we knew this girl who was a woman was really a girl. We knew she had problems, and she did not have the luxury the rest of us do to handle our problems privately, with dignity. She was a mess. So what? We are all stinking messes, every last one of us, or we once were messes and found our way out, or we are trying to find our way out ..
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Roxane Gay |
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6fe8e8c
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Bottomless. Fearless. This is the reputation I developed in my social circle. One of those things was true.
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Roxane Gay |
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a1ee995
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I took it for granted that this is what all families did--come together and become an island unto themselves, the kitchen table the sun around which we revolved.
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Roxane Gay |
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21630a1
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But the pain of a tattoo is something to which you have to surrender because once you've started, you cannot really go back or you'll be left with something not only permanent but unfinished. I enjoy the irrevocability of that circumstance. You have to allow yourself this pain. You have chosen this suffering, and at the end of it, your body will be different. Maybe your body will feel more like yours.
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Roxane Gay |
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2dba59b
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When I look at the arcs of ink, more than twenty years later, I still see a woman with wings, a woman who can escape anything she wants, even her body.
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Roxane Gay |
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d1cbf0e
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She was trying to disappear and she couldn't. It is unbearable to want something so little and need it so much.
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Roxane Gay |
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43d53b3
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Even the happiest moments of my life are overshadowed by my body and how it doesn't fit anywhere. This is no way to live but this is how I live.
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Roxane Gay |
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d141ab4
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The past is written on my body. I carry it every single day. The past sometimes feels like it might kill me.
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Roxane Gay |
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460eddb
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I am good at following rules when I choose to.
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Roxane Gay |
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a74a67a
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My body is a cage. My body is a cage of my own making. I am still trying to figure my way out of it. I have been trying to figure a way out of it for more than twenty years.
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Roxane Gay |
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af24013
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And still, when I am with my family, when we become that island unto ourselves, I allow myself to be a part of them. I am trying to forgive and make up for lost time, to close the distances I put between us even though it was necessary, for a time, for me to be apart from them. These are the people who know not all of me but know enough, know what matters most. They continue to love me so hard and I love them hard in return.
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Roxane Gay |
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6ec7ad2
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I don't save lives, but I try not to ruin them.
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Roxane Gay |
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3ba7264
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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 and am marginalized, the ways I have suffered.
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Roxane Gay |
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03dd834
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Life, apparently, requires a trigger warning. This is the uncomfortable truth: everything is a trigger for someone. There are things you cannot tell just by looking at someone. We all have history. You can think you're over your history. You can think the past is the past. And then something happens, often innocuous, that shows you how far you are from over it. The past is always with you. Some people want to be protected from this truth.
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trigger-warnings
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Roxane Gay |
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45f4616
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Certainly, it has shown me the importance of inclusivity and acceptance (not merely tolerance) for diverse body types.
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Roxane Gay |
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d36a114
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Every woman I know is on a perpetual diet. I know I don't feel comfortable in my body, but I want to and that's what I am working toward. I am working toward abandoning the damaging cultural messages that tell me my worth is strictly tied up in my body. I am trying to undo all the hateful things I tell myself. I am trying to find ways to hold my head high when I walk into a room, and to stare right back when people stare at me.
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Roxane Gay |
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4659359
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Somewhere along the line we started misinterpreting the First Amendment and this idea of the freedom of speech the amendment grants us. We are free to speak as we choose without fear of prosecution or persecution, but we are not free to speak as we choose without consequence. The
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Roxane Gay |
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c68b5e2
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In all seriousness, Scrabble was invented by a man named Alfred Mosher Butts.
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Roxane Gay |
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d0b0912
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Most black movies, for better or worse, carry a burden of expectation, having to be everything to everyone because we have so little to choose from. Suffice
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Roxane Gay |
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9a560d7
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representations of a woman's strength overlook the cost of that strength, where it rises from, and how it is called upon when needed most. The
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Roxane Gay |
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92d0de1
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The problem with movements is that, all too often, they are associated only with the most visible figures, the people with the biggest platforms and the loudest, most provocative voices. But feminism is not whatever philosophy is being spouted by the popular media feminist of the week, at least not entirely.
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women-s-rights
movements
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Roxane Gay |
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c8a0120
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Because in Atlas Shrugged, alpha male Francisco d'Anconia tells railroad company VP Dagny Taggart that she sounds happy in her new relationship: "'But, you see, the measure of the hell you're able to endure is the measure of your love."
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Roxane Gay |
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294797d
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Just because you survive something does not mean you are strong. The
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Roxane Gay |
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87f58e0
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Some women being empowered does not prove the patriarchy is dead. It proves that some of us are lucky. It
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Roxane Gay |
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492faea
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At times, I thought, This is too much, but I know something of the world now, and there are rarely limits to suffering.
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Roxane Gay |
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3bf9209
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The weight fluctuations of famous women are tracked like stocks because their bodies are, in their line of work, their personal stock, the physical embodiment of market value.
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Roxane Gay |
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9999961
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She tries to walk not too fast and not too slow. She doesn't want to attract any attention. She pretends she doesn't hear the whistles and catcalls and lewd comments. Sometimes she forgets and leaves her house in a skirt or a tank top because it's a warm day and she wants to feel warm air on her bare skin. Before long, she remembers. She keeps her keys in her hand, three of them held between her fingers, like a dull claw. She makes eye cont..
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Roxane Gay |
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811148b
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Salvation is certainly among the reasons I read. Reading and writing have always pulled me out of the darkest experiences in my life. Stories have given me a place in which to lose myself. They have allowed me to remember. They have allowed me to forget. They have allowed me to imagine different endings and better possible worlds. Perhaps
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Roxane Gay |
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f738eb1
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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 unconditional and unwavering in his love, and also he is very, very strong. He can throw a sack of flour, is what I am saying. Peeta is a place of solace and hope, and he is a good kisser.
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Roxane Gay |