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b4afaee
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Qui tacet consentire videtur [silence gives consent]
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Roxane Gay |
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1e56dd1
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Here's the thing about history - it repeats itself over and over and over. The witch hunts, and the demonization of contraception and abortion and the women who provided these services from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, are happening all over again. This time, though, the witch hunt is a cynical ploy to distract the populace from some of the truly pressing issues our society is facing: the devastated economy and a Wall Street cult..
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Roxane Gay |
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b013267
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There are all kinds of television shows and movies about women but how many of them make women recognizable? There
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Roxane Gay |
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673b0c6
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I disavowed feminism because I had no rational understanding of the movement. I was called a feminist, and what I heard was, "You are an angry, sex-hating, man-hating victim lady person."
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Roxane Gay |
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54f799a
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The rifle was just a hunk of metal, a heavy thing, a killing thing.
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Roxane Gay |
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3c991dc
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Su, an Australian woman who, when interviewed for Kathy Bail's 1996 anthology DIY Feminism, said feminists are "just women who don't want to be treated like shit."
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Roxane Gay |
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4f7bc5f
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There's no denying women are doing better than they ever have, but is that really saying much? When you consider what life was like for women before suffrage, before Title IX, before the Equal Pay Act, before Roe v. Wade, before any number of changes that made life merely tolerable, most any success women encountered would seem like a rise in circumstance. Rosin
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Roxane Gay |
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f514c11
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Anger without action leads to riots.
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Roxane Gay |
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9d6c457
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it's dangerous to suggest that the targets of oppression are wholly responsible for ending that oppression.
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Roxane Gay |
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3e67824
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Qui se ressemble s'assemble [you are whom you surround yourself with]
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Roxane Gay |
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7099e99
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We must look to how we can best support the least among us, not spend all our time blindly revering and trying to mimic the greatest without demanding systemic change. In
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Roxane Gay |
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5948441
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I hear many young women say they can't find well-known feminists with whom they identify. That can be disheartening, but I say, let us (try to) become the feminists we would like to see moving through the world.
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feminism
role-models
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Roxane Gay |
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fb1f0f9
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We cannot separate violence in fiction from violence in the world no matter how hard we try.
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Roxane Gay |
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4d205c9
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black cinema will not end the demonization of young black men, but a movie like Fruitvale Station offers us a necessary insight into the consequences. When
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Roxane Gay |
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3be839a
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W]omen, more often than not, are the recipient of God's intentions and must also bear the burdens of these intentions.
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Roxane Gay |
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d5a410f
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There are injustices great and small, and even if we can only fight the small ones, at least we are fighting. Too
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Roxane Gay |
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e939081
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We expect role models to model the behaviors we are perfectly capable of modeling ourselves.
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Roxane Gay |
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6740a22
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The problem is that I see people on BET who look like me, but that's where the similarities end.
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Roxane Gay |
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2f0bc25
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When women respond negatively to misogynistic or rape humor, they are "sensitive" and branded as "feminist," a word that has, as of late, become a catchall term for "woman who"
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Roxane Gay |
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9ea4e7a
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Qui tacet consentire videtur is Latin for "Silence gives consent."
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Roxane Gay |
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3e428be
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For every step forward, there is some asshole shoving progress back. Despite
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Roxane Gay |
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b57ba56
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I am sorry our culture has treated women so poorly for so long that suffering abuse to receive celebrity attention seems like a fair and reasonable trade. We have failed you, utterly. We
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Roxane Gay |
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82f9c49
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We fail you every single time a (famous) man treats a woman badly, without legal, professional, or personal consequence. Over
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Roxane Gay |
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427088a
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also understood that I wasn't being intentionally mean. I was being honest (admittedly, without tact), and I was being human. It is either a blessing or a curse that those are rarely likable qualities in a woman. Inevitably
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Roxane Gay |
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f9b8a5d
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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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Sherman Alexie wrote, "There are millions of teens who read because they are sad and lonely and enraged. They read because they live in an often-terrible world. They read because they believe, despite the callow protestations of certain adults, that books--especially the dark and dangerous ones--will save them." I"
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Roxane Gay |
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157309e
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I learned a long time ago that life introduces young people to situations they are in no way prepared for, even good girls, lucky girls who want for nothing. Sometimes, when you least expect it, you become the girl in the woods. You lose your name because another one is forced on you.
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Roxane Gay |
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4161378
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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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e1f0bbe
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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, the afterthoughts. Rarely do women get to be the center of attention. Rarely do our stories get to matter. How
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Roxane Gay |
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fe4b3b9
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life often presents unendurable circumstances people manage to survive. Only the details differ.
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Roxane Gay |
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Women do not have short memories. We cannot afford that luxury as our choices dwindle. Politicians
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Roxane Gay |
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I struggle to accept that my body is a legislative matter.
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Roxane Gay |
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08740e1
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Writing bridges many differences. Kindness bridges many differences too,
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Roxane Gay |
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edbc7c2
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Privilege is a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor. There is racial privilege, gender (and identity) privilege, heterosexual privilege, economic privilege, able-bodied privilege, educational privilege, religious privilege, and the list goes on and on. At some point, you have to surrender to the kinds of privilege you hold. Nearly everyone, particularly in the developed world, has something someone else doesn..
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Roxane Gay |
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7d109e4
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The problem is, cultural critics talk about privilege with such alarming frequency and in such empty ways, we have diluted the word's meaning. When people wield the word "privilege," it tends to fall on deaf ears because we hear that word so damn much it has become white noise. One"
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Roxane Gay |
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3ff6f58
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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.
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Roxane Gay |
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bdf53bb
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Can't a man pay you a compliment? In truth, this is all a symptom of a much more virulent cultural sickness--one where women exist to satisfy the whims of men, one where a woman's worth is consistently diminished or entirely ignored. Or
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Roxane Gay |
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3a01f4c
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Immovable people will not be moved by testimony. Her story becomes an emotional spectacle, something for people to consider, briefly, before moving on to the next sad story.
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Roxane Gay |
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The older I get, though, the more I realize how fairy tales demand a great deal from the woman.
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Roxane Gay |
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Fifty Shades trilogy that has piqued the popular imagination. The books are erotic, amusing in their absurdity, and disturbing in their cultural implications about just how much trouble Prince Charming can be. In
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Roxane Gay |
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e4b1f6c
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Perhaps we can consider Lean In for what it is--just one more reminder that the rules are always different for girls, no matter who they are and no matter what they do.
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Roxane Gay |
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6a71107
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I'm not even sure what the sisterhood is, but the idea of a sisterhood menaces me, quietly, reminding me of how bad a feminist I am.
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Roxane Gay |
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That's a common tactic of abusers--isolating their victims--but we're supposed to think the way Christian isolates Ana in luxury is romantic. A prison is still a prison even when the sheets are 1200 thread count, but the premise, in my weaker moments, is seductive enough to make that prison seem tolerable. In
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Roxane Gay |
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33c6c0d
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Qui se ressemble s'assemble.
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Roxane Gay |