During the holidays, a lot of my female friends are writing about body image, weight gain, etc. While it’s not exactly the same thing, it reminds me of Marjane Satrapi in Persepolis 2, writing about the experience of taking on the veil in Iran:

“The regime had understood that one person leaving her house while asking herself: ‘Are my trousers long enough?’ ‘Is my veil in place?’ ‘Can my makeup be seen?’ ‘Are they going to whip me?”

No longer asks herself: ‘Where is my freedom of thought?’ ‘ Where is my freedom of speech?’ ‘My life, is it livable?’ ‘What’s going on in the political prisons?”
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What if we women took all the energy we spend thinking about how much we suck, and put it into getting fair wages? Reducing discrimination? Acquiring affordable daycare? Reducing poverty?

You only have so much time. How do you want to spend it?