Stop apologizing. Now.

Stop starving, stop folding your arms and legs into your body and start yelling. You have something to say that people ought to hear because:

-Women, now and through history, have been conditioned into professional nonentities. To take up the space our bodies require and enjoy the gifts they hold is deemed a sinful indulgence.

-And think back to Sept 11, 2001. Remember when the general public finally became aware of the Taliban? Remember the burqas? The whole point of a burqa is to make Afghan women less than human. A burqa has no face with eyes that tell stories of systemic rape, oppression, fear. It has no voice. It blends in with the scenery. Nothing makes one unique from another.

-And in America, while things are arguably better, we still learn to hold our tongues when we hear something we know is wrong. We still strive to be docile, demure – absent of noise, mess, controversy, the blood, piss and shit that makes us human animals.

-And to be an ideal woman is to give and give and to deny oneself the simple pleasures that are essential to being real people. When we starve ourselves thin (and to do this, we need not be anorexic-dieting is starvation), when we make a point to take up as little space as possible, when we stay silent when we want to speak, when we refuse pleasures of the body because of a disproportionately applied standard of chastity, we are striving toward insignificance.

-And we diet away our curves, denying ourselves the ample food we deserve, that our bodies crave. No matter what our body tells us our weight should be, we fight it.

-And we chastise the fat for their supposed lack of self-control even though research shows that overweight people generally don’t consume any more than an average-weight person. We alternately idolize and vilify the thin, worshipping their culturally contextualized beauty and resenting their achievement of something that is simply impossible for most.

-And dieting will kill you faster than being fat will. When you lose weight from eating less, your metabolism slows. When you eat normally again, the weight comes back on faster, and yo-yoing in a range of sometimes 100 pounds takes an enormous toll on your body. Being underweight is less healthy than being overweight-numerous studies have shown a higher mortality rate among people who are very thin.

-And you are made to fight your body. Take it back. It belongs to you, not your parents, not your friends, not your lovers. It is your passage to joy and pain and the whole of human experience. Let it take you there.

-And your body wants to be a certain size and the world should learn to accommodate it. You should not be forced to cram into a tiny seat on an airplane, in a movie theater or at a desk. Uncross those limbs. Take up space. Revel in the size of your body.

-And you can know your body, love it and take it where it wants to go. Women like sex as much as men. They crave it, they initiate it, they enjoy it every bit as much as a man does. It’s fine to say so. If you got laid last night and it was spectacular, tell someone about it. If it’s not doing it for you, tell your partner. If they’re good enough for you, they’ll want to know.

-And take of yourself. Touch and know what belongs to you, the riches within you. Find your joys with the motion of your own hand and know yourself. Reach all the way, search with your hands, push far and split the waves, and don’t stop until you realize the noise you hear comes from the woman you’ve hidden from view.

-And I’m the girl who talks in class. I raise my hand and sometimes I embarrass myself, but I keep doing it. I deserve to be heard, and you do too. And the more of us do it, the more comfortable we’ll all feel about it.

-And if someone says something that sucks, you can let them hear about it and instantly turn the tables. I don’t let a single “that’s gay,” or “girls are evil” slide. They’ll call you a bitch. Honey, it’s either that or a doormat. If you know it’s wrong, let them be the people feeling uncomfortable instead of you.

-And you are a hungry, loud, sexual being. All humans are. Being a woman doesn’t cancel that out.

-And you are beautiful, not in spite of speaking out, eating big and enjoying your body, but because of these things and so much more. To hell with anyone who disagrees.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.” -Eleanor Roosevelt.