What Did You Expect, Though?
The immune system, meant to protect a body from foreign invaders, works too assiduously, sees danger where there is none, turns on itself. Such conditions lend themselves to metaphor.
Posts by tag
female bodies
71 posts
Sylvia Plath and Reclaiming the Gaze
Perhaps as women we are always trying to record the gaze. Marginalized people are often asked to validate our distrust, trepidation, and fear.
Everybody Is Fine: Talking with Jasmine Guillory
Jasmine Guillory discusses her debut novel, The Wedding Date, finding success, writing sex, and the revolutionary act of eating.
ENOUGH: While the Wild Dogs in Me Strain at Their Leashes
A Rumpus series of work by women and non-binary writers that engages with rape culture, sexual assault, and domestic violence.
Thick and Thin
Today is not the day I can eat like a normal person and not tomorrow either. But maybe the day after that or the next one after.
Our Own Bodies: A Conversation with JoAnna Novak
JoAnna Novak discusses her novel, I Must Have You, eating disorders, and writing characters that challenge our expectations of how women should behave.
The Peep King’s Legacy: A Family Portrait
The day after Hugh Hefner died, I received a text from my sister that our grandfather was starring alongside James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal in HBO's new series, The Deuce.
Hooters Chicken
I applied for a job at Hooters on a dare a few weeks before my nineteenth birthday. A shoe salesman who worked across from me at the mall told me he’d pay me twenty dollars to apply.
Between Autonomy and Powerlessness: Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
Women’s bodies signify so much, both to ourselves and others, that inhabiting them and having ownership over them often feel like two different states of being.
Transgressive and Unruly Women: Talking with Anne Helen Petersen
Anne Helen Peterson discusses her new book, Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman, her writing process, and academia.
The Butt Song
Last night as my husband got ready to go out [my daughter] grabbed his coat and said, “Call 1-900-Mix-A-Lot and kick those nasty thoughts.”