Roxane Gay

Change requires intent and effort. It really is that simple.

When I was called a feminist, during those days, my first thought was, But I willingly give blow jobs. I had it in my head that I could not both be a feminist and be sexually open.

We don’t all have to believe in the same feminism. Feminism can be pluralistic so long as we respect the different feminisms we carry with us, so long as we give enough of a damn to try to minimize the fractures among us.

What about other women of color? For Hispanic and Latina women, Indian women, Middle Eastern women, Asian women, their absence in popular culture is even more pronounced, their need for relief just as palpable and desperate.

I would definitely like to tear down this wall I've built around myself, because I don't need it anymore. And I know that intellectually, and on good days, I know that emotionally. I don't want to be thin, I want to be smaller, because I just do. I think it makes so many things easier just on a day-to-day basis, and also I have no small amount of vanity, so I just want to be able to find cuter clothes. Sometimes it's really basic things that I would like for myself.

I am self-conscious beyond measure. I am intensely and constantly preoccupied with my body in the world because I know what people think and what they see when they look at me. I know that I am breaking the unspoken rules of what a woman should look like. I

I am weary of all our sad stories — not hearing them, but that we have these stories to tell, that there are so many.

It’s hard to be told to lighten up because if you lighten up any more, you’re going to float the fuck away.

I know what it means to hunger without being hungry. My father believes hunger is in the mind. I know differently. I know that hunger is in the mind and the body and the heart and the soul.

I give the victim the benefit of the doubt when it comes to allegations of rape and sexual abuse. I choose to err on that side of caution. This does not mean I am unsympathetic to the wrongly accused, but if there are sides to be chosen, I am on the side of the victim.

My brother once called me a hard person. I think he meant that I am a person who does not forgive. This is true. I find it difficult to forgive people who have done harm to me.

A girl is a girl whether she lives in West Omaha or Sweet Valley. Books are often far more than just books.

So many of us are reaching out, hoping someone out there will grab our hands and remind us we are not as alone as we fear.

I approach most things in life with a dangerous level of confidence to balance my generally low self-esteem.

More troubling than this oddly timed debate about birth control is the vehemence with which women need to justify or explain why they take birth control — health reasons, to regulate periods, you know, as if there's anything wrong with taking birth control simply because you want to have sex without that sex resulting in pregnancy.