It took burning out for many of us to arrive at this point. But the new millennial refrain of “Fuck passion, pay me” feels more persuasive and powerf… - Anne Helen Petersen

In How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, Jenny Odell makes a deeply compelling case for ignoring all of the impulses toward productivity and perfection that have come to imbue our lives, leisure, and otherwise. That means doing, well, nothing — at least nothing that is conceived of as value-making under capitalism.

It’s an attitude shared by so many women of history, so many women of this book, and so many others reading it: a hope that someday, the only rules a woman will have to abide by are those she sets for herself.

Hence, the policing of the female athlete, who faces the daunting task of maintaining a body strong enough to excel at her sport of choice but contained enough so as not to incite fear about transcending her given place in the world.