It hurts to live after someone has died. It just does. - Michelle Obama

The size of our hips, our style, our swag, it becomes co-opted but then we are demonised... My advice to young women is that you have to start by getting those demons out of your head. The questions I ask myself — "am I good enough?" — that haunts us, because the messages that are sent from the time we are little is: maybe you are not, don't reach too high, don't talk too loud.

To Mom, Dad, Craig and all of my special friends: Thank-you for loving me and always making me feel good about myself.

Women endure entire lifetimes of these indignities — in the form of catcalls, groping, assault, oppression. These things injure us. They sap our strength. Some of the cuts are so small they’re barely visible. Others are huge and gaping, leaving scars that never heal. Either way, they accumulate. We carry them everywhere, to and from school and work, at home while raising our children, at our places of worship, anytime we try to advance.