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" A lot of ink is given over to mythologizing female friendships as curious, fragile relationships that are always intensely fraught. Stop reading writing that encourages this mythology. "
Roxane Gay
Relationships
Reading
Curious
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" If I were ever to grace the pages of 'Vogue,' I would want my image retouched because the audience is so vast. There is great vulnerability in being exposed to that many judging eyes. I feel no small amount of guilt over this willingness to surrender my ideals. "
Roxane Gay
Grace
Feel
Eyes
" Public intellectuals are often put in the position of having their words, no matter how off-the-cuff, treated as doctrine. "
Roxane Gay
Public
Position
Words
" I have known beaches, but I have no particular fondness for them. I don't like sand in my crevices. I don't like sand at all. I don't enjoy all that sunshine and heat without the benefit of climate control. "
Roxane Gay
Control
Heat
Sand
" Long walks on the beach are the supposed holy grail of a romantic evening. The beach becomes a kind of utopia - the place where all our dreams come true. "
Roxane Gay
Long
Place
Dreams
" Beyonce is not above critique. As a feminist herself, I hope Beyonce would welcome it. "
Roxane Gay
Feminist
Above
Welcome
" Social media is something of a double-edged sword. At its best, social media offers unprecedented opportunities for marginalized people to speak and bring much needed attention to the issues they face. At its worst, social media also offers 'everyone' an unprecedented opportunity to share in collective outrage without reflection. "
Roxane Gay
Best
People
Reflection
" We all have our vanities. The retouching magazines like 'Vogue' do is the professional version of the retouching we do when we, for example, apply Instagram filters to the pictures we take and share on our social networks. "
Roxane Gay
Example
Professional
Pictures
" I cut an imposing figure. I am large, and I'm tall, and I have tattoos. I am actually really quiet and shy, but maybe people see me, and they don't want to step out of line, or equate disagreement with stepping out of line with a writer they like. "
Roxane Gay
I Am
Quiet
Shy
" I think it was really entering my 30s that I began to embrace feminism and call myself a feminist. "
Roxane Gay
Myself
Call
Embrace
" I tend to write three to four hours a day, depending - oftentimes very late at night. When I write on Twitter, I do other things: I'm working, grading, or reading, and I'm procrastinating, and I'll pop on Twitter and be like, 'Hey, what's up? Yogurt's delicious.' "
Roxane Gay
Night
Day
Three
" Feminism is just an idea. It's a philosophy. It's about the equality of women in all realms. It's not about man-hating. It's not about being humorless. We have to let go of these misconceptions that have plagued feminism for 40, 50 years. "
Roxane Gay
Feminism
Philosophy
Women
" I try to understand faith and religion. I was raised by wonderful Catholic parents who were deeply faithful and taught us that God is a God of love. "
Roxane Gay
Try
Religion
Parents
" I want to take the time to think through how I feel and why I feel. I don't want to feign expertise on matters I know nothing about for the purpose of offering someone else my immediate reaction for their consumption. "
Roxane Gay
Time
Feel
Purpose
" I have never been married. I don't know if I will ever marry, though I hope to. When I am asked why I have not married, I explain that my parents have been happily married for 42 years. The bar feels so very high for that kind of commitment. "
Roxane Gay
Parents
Know
I Am
" It's so hard to write about countries like Haiti because there's truths behind the misperceptions people have. But there's so much more. There are multiple truths. "
Roxane Gay
Hard
Like
People
" Love your friends' kids, even if you don't want or like children. Just do it. "
Roxane Gay
Children
Want
You
" In Hollywood, a normal-size body is unruly. "
Roxane Gay
Hollywood
Body
Unruly
" There has been, and there will continue to be, vigorous discussions about race in America. I worry that little will come of these discussions because we aren't addressing what must be done to change the current racial climate. "
Roxane Gay
America
Done
Race
" I think one of the most important things we can do as feminists is acknowledge that, even though we have womanhood in common, we have to start to think about the ways in which we're different, how those differences affect us, and what kinds of needs we have based on our differences. "
Roxane Gay
Differences
Us
Think
" It's an amusing idea to some, this feminism thing - this audacious notion that women should be able to move through the world as freely, and enjoy the same inalienable rights and bodily autonomy, as men. At least, that's the impression given when feminism and feminists are all too often the targets of lazy humor. "
Roxane Gay
Lazy
Enjoy
Women
" 2014 was a year of intense social upheaval. In truth, the same could be said for most every year. There is no standstill in a world filled with so many people, scrambling for so much. "
Roxane Gay
World
Truth
Said
" We have cellphones and smartphones and iDevices and laptops and the ability to be perpetually connected. We never have to miss anything, significant or insignificant. "
Roxane Gay
Never
Ability
Anything
" I support anything that broadens the message of gender equality and tempers the stigma of the feminist label. We run into trouble, though, when we celebrate celebrity feminism while avoiding the actual work of feminism. "
Roxane Gay
Celebrate
Work
Support
" I have never dreamed of being a princess. I have not longed for Prince Charming. I have and do long for something resembling a happily ever after. I am supposed to be above such flights of fantasy, but I am not. I am enamored of fairy tales. "
Roxane Gay
Fantasy
I Am
Princess
" Margaret Sanger didn't just introduce the idea of birth control into our culture at large, she freed women from indenture to their bodies. "
Roxane Gay
Control
Culture
She
" People don't want to think... I mean, they don't! They just want to say, 'Oh, okay, feminists are humorless man-haters,' and that's simply not the case. There are radical people and radical ideas in absolutely every movement, but that doesn't mean they define the ideals. "
Roxane Gay
People
Ideas
Okay
" Day after day with them, I see more and more of my parents in me. I see where all my quirks come from. I see my future. "
Roxane Gay
Future
Day
Me
" Throughout any given season of 'The Bachelor,' the women exclaim that the experience is like a fairy tale. They suffer the machinations of reality television, pursuing - along with several other women, often inebriated - the promise of happily ever after. "
Roxane Gay
Television
Reality
Women
" I think there are a lot of rules for women. We have a lot of expectations and a lot of rules for women. So we're expected to march in a straight line, and when we don't, all hell breaks loose. "
Roxane Gay
Women
Hell
Expectations
" In truth, I don't care about making feminism more accessible to anyone. "
Roxane Gay
Truth
Accessible
Feminism