“It would be easy to pretend I am just fine with my body as it is–I am a feminist after all and I believe in diverse body types–but then I have to leave my apartment and face the world.”–Roxane Gay on how “by the power of Beyonce,” she’ll overcome her fears.
“Publishing is overwhelmingly dominated by white, heterosexual, able-bodied women. What bodies do they think are hard to look at?“–Mallory Ortberg on “Publishing, Weight and Writers Who Are ‘Hard To Look At'”
“If you’re taught to be afraid of and move away from the body that you occupy, you never see a possibility of living in that place.”–Jamal Lewis on exploring blackness, “gender deviance,” fatness and femmeness in their upcoming documentary
“If a stranger were to come up to me in the street and touched me inappropriately, I would be well within my rights to report the incident to the police and expect some sort of repercussion for the perpetrator. I don’t feel that this is the case online, and that women are left to fend for themselves, or told to simply ‘get off the internet.’“–from “I Run A Vintage Underwear Blog–And The Dick Pics And Death Threats Never Stop”
“Afeni Shakur’s place in hip-hop history is just one of the things that she achieved during her 69 years on earth…However, her contributions in the fight for civil rights and the upliftment of African-American culture should also be noted.”
“I love the idea of queerness, both in terms of gender and in its other meanings. I didn’t even hear anyone speak about queerness or homosexuality until I was about sixteen, and two older friends came out as queer. When the words and slurs were explained to me, the recognition of those feelings and desires in myself began to sing.”–Quintan Ana Wikswo being interviewed by Edie Meidav
“I think courage and bravery, they essentially come down to having, let’s say, two decisions in front of you and opting for the decision that’s going to promote change.”–U.N. ambassador, Ingrid Nilsen on coming out on YouTube
“As people who care about language, we are particularly troubled by the article’s righteous celebration of ignorance about how nouns and adjectives work, and the author’s desire to blame trans people and their allies for rejecting nouns that have no descriptive or identifying purchase (“transgenders”) in favor of adjectival uses that correctly describe people: trans men, trans women, trans people, gender non-conforming humans.” — Writers, Editors, and Librarians Denounce Transphobia in the Antioch Review
If you agree with Note to Self that “listening to podcasts hosted by women is a feminist act” then check out this list of 111 female hosted podcasts.
Weird Sister Caolan Madden has two new poems about “dressing up, growing up, the aging body, the male gaze” and more in the latest issue of glitterMOB.
Check out Weird Sister Soleil Ho‘s new The Racist Sandwich Podcast—the first episode features an interview with Oregon’s first Black wine maker.
Red Ink, a new Brooklyn quarterly literary series centered around women writers, past and present, is launching Monday, May 9th at BookCourt.
What did we miss this week? Let us know in the comments! <3
