Feminist Fail: My Secret Body Shame
No matter how many anti-fat shaming and body acceptance posts I read and share, the feeling of inadequacy returns. A Victoria’s Secret model mocks me from my refrigerator door. Her stomach, smooth and...
View ArticleTaking Beauty Out Of Body Positivity
While I’m in favor of encouraging women to feel confident and happy, I worry that today’s body positivity focuses too much on affirming beauty and not enough on deconstructing its necessity. In the...
View ArticleI’m A 43-Year-Old Mom And I Posed Nude. Here’s Why And What I Learned
I want to celebrate my beauty and my body and my whole self as I am, not as I wish I were. When my memoir Stripping Down was published in 2012, I thought I would be done with needing to talk about my...
View ArticleWhy Saying ‘You Look Gorgeous’ Is Not Helping The Body Image War
People can be ten thousand things, and really, looking beautiful is only one of them. I recently participated in a photo shoot, and the photographer posted one of the images on Facebook. Most of my...
View ArticleWhy Does My Daughter’s Short Hair Bother You So Much?
I think she looks fabulous, but people sure have a lot of opinions about it. My 9-year-old daughter has never been shy about her preferences and opinions. Right before she began kindergarten, she...
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What About When You Can’t Always Be Body Positive?
Some days you can just live in your body and give yourself space to be not OK at all. It’s completely OK to look in the mirror and be sad that your stomach is a curtain for your pubic hair. I was a...
View ArticleI’ve Spent 10,585 Days Caring About My Looks, And Now I’m Done
Countless hours, days, weeks, months, and years spent wondering if I am good enough. I haven’t shaved my legs for a few weeks. It wasn’t intentional. I just haven’t made the time in the morning to get...
View Article‘One Creates Oneself’: On Being A Feminist Who Loves Makeup
I reject the insistence that a woman can’t choose what makes her feel beautiful without regard for the judgement of others. 1997: The girls at school collect Bonnie Bell Lip Smackers. We line them up...
View ArticleWhy Is Going Without Makeup Such A Big Deal For Women Who Usually Wear It?
Instead of feeling liberated, going barefaced made me feel anxious and unkempt. The thought of staring at myself in the mirror for an hour in a workout class where I’m not wearing makeup makes my...
View ArticleHow To Protect Yourself From The Very Real Thing That Is Beauty Sickness
We’ve never had the privilege of living in a world where our appearance wasn’t viewed as our primary form of social capital. Hair and makeup, body glitter, eating right…on the bright side of beauty...
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