I am totally down with disagreement. I don't like Haterade, but disagreement is wonderful. When someone disagrees, we try to reach common ground. That's good.
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.
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.
As I started to think about how I can claim feminism while also acknowledging my humanity and my imperfections, 'bad feminism' simply seemed like the best answer.
I have a job I'm pretty good at. I am in charge of things. I am on committees. People respect me and take my counsel. I want to be strong and professional, but I resent how hard I have to work to be taken seriously, to receive a fraction of the consideration I might otherwise receive.
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.
After the Boston Marathon bombings, people shared grief and outrage on social media.
For celebrities, privacy is utterly nonexistent. You are asked intrusive questions about your personal life. You can be photographed at any moment.
If you feel like it's hard to be friends with women, consider that maybe women aren't the problem. Maybe it's just you.
When I drive to work, I listen to thuggish rap at a very loud volume, even though the lyrics are degrading to women and offend me to my core. I am mortified by my music choices.
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.
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.
We were the only black family in my neighborhood for many years. Wherever we lived, we were often the only black family, and certainly the only Haitian family. But my parents were really great at providing a loving home where we could feel safe and secure.
I think the world is ambivalent about feminism. So I can't blame college students. I think they're reflecting the greater culture's attitude toward feminism. So what I can do is, in ways that are appropriate, advocate for feminism and help the students learn what feminism is about.
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.
I keep trying to imagine a universe in which too many public figures declaring themselves feminists would be a bad thing.
I am 39. I am single. I am a black woman. I have too many advanced degrees. Many a news story tells me finding true love is likely a hopeless proposition. Now is the time when I need to believe in fairy tales.
No one is helped when cultural critics use their voices irresponsibly.
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.
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.
My parents have been married for 42 years. Their marriage has been - from what I can see - a happy one.
Want nothing but the best for your friends because when your friends are happy and successful, it's probably going to be easier for you to be happy.
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.
You can't control the fact that you are born a white man or born into wealth. When people say, 'Check your privilege,' they're saying, 'Acknowledge how these factors helped you move through life.' They're not saying apologize for it.
Beyonce is not above critique. As a feminist herself, I hope Beyonce would welcome it.
This is the real problem feminism faces. Too many people are willfully ignorant about what the word means and what the movement aims to achieve.
I was in love with the idea of love, so I created elaborate fictions for my relationships - fictions that allowed me to believe that what any given paramour and I shared looked a lot like love.
If we look too closely at many historical figures, we won't like what we see.
It sometimes feels like the workplace is immune from social upheaval. We go to work and do the best we can, and at the end of the day, we return to our lives. We don't abandon who we are, however, when we begin and end our workday. Who we are shapes how we are perceived in the workplace and, in turn, how we perform in the workplace.
If a woman wants to take her husband's name, that's her choice, and I still think she can be feminist while doing that.
In truth, I don't care about making feminism more accessible to anyone.
The first amendment makes it clear that we are free to practice religion without government interference. The Constitution also establishes the separation of church and state so that the laws we live by our never guided by religious zeal.
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.
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.
We bear witness to the worst of human brutality, retweet what we have witnessed, and then we move on to the next atrocity. There is always more atrocity.
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.
There are all kinds of people who continue to be largely ignored by advertisers, whose lives largely go unseen. They deserve their moment.
Something outrageous, in the truest sense of the word, is always happening. On social networks, we're always voicing our reactions to these outrageous events. We read essays and 'think pieces' about these outrageous events. We comment on the commentary. We do this because we can.
I think it was really entering my 30s that I began to embrace feminism and call myself a feminist.
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.
Florida is a strange place: hot, beautiful, ugly. I love it here, and how nothing makes sense but still, somehow, there is a rhythm.
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.
I reject the idea that when young women make choices with which we disagree, they are acting without autonomy.
Most of the serious disagreement I get comes through email or social media, where people are more comfortable.
I don't want the whole of my writing or my intellectual energy given over to race because I have diverse interests.
The expansive anarchy of the Internet continues to lull us into believing that, because we can see something, that something should be seen. Because we can say something, there is something that must be said.
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.
It's disheartening that people think that Donald Sterling is the outlier and that he's the exception and not the rule.
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.
