Kat

“I say no to people who prioritize being cool over being good. I say no to misogynists who want to weaponize my body against me. I say no to men who feel entitled to my attention and reverence, who treat everything the light touches as a resource for them to burn. I say no to religious zealots who insist that I am less important than an embryo. I say no to my own instinct to stay quiet. It's a way of kicking down the boundaries that society has set up for women - be compliant, be a caregiver, be quiet - and erecting my own. I will do this; I will not do that. You believe in my subjugation; I don't have to be nice to you. I am busy. My time is not a public commodity.”
― Lindy West, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

“For this is their parting: as sudden and slow, surprising and foreseen as any parting. Between together and apart: an eyeblink and all of eternity.”
― Jess Kidd, Things in Jars

“As a woman, my body is scrutinized, policed, and treated as a public commodity. As a fat woman, my body is also lampooned, openly reviled, and associated with moral and intellectual failure. My body limits my job prospects, access to medical care and fair trials, and – the one thing Hollywood movies and Internet trolls most agree on – my ability to be loved. So the subtext, when a thin person asks a fat person, ‘Where do you get your confidence?’ is, ‘You must be some sort of alien because if I looked like you, I would definitely throw myself into the sea.”
― Lindy West, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

“I always thought that if I just never, ever acknowledged it – never wore a bathing suit, never objected to a fat joke on TV, stuck to ‘flattering’ clothes, never said the word ‘fat’ out loud – then maybe people wouldn’t notice. Maybe I could pass as thin, or at least obedient. But, I was slowly learning, you can’t advocate for yourself if you won’t admit what you are.”
― Lindy West, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman