The Calculations We Make

A woman walking at night. It’s nighttime, and the street is not quite as populated or well-lit as I thought it would be. Mostly I’m alone or there’s one other person, always a man. The walk to my car is only about 8 minutes, but I’m already starting to regret...

Taking Self-Defense Into a Time Machine

Photo credit: Daniele Franchi / Unsplash To protect herself from the assault, Y froze. Trauma was beginning to set in. But once she was ina safe space back at home, Y’s roommate L led her through movement therapy, and traumaultimately did not set in. The...

Dethroning Microaggressions

“Where are you really from?”“Which one of your parents is stricter?”“But your English is so good!”“I bet you’re really good in bed.”“How come you don’t have an accent?”“You’re too Asian.”“You’re not Asian enough.”“You must be adopted.”“Well, you don’t look...

Anthony’s Ceiling

“What I ended up feeling when I was talking to girls was that they were systematically disconnected from their bodies, and with boys it was that they were systematically disconnected from their hearts.” – Peggy Orenstein, author of Girls & Sex and Boys & Sex...

Safety & Empowerment for Women of Color

When I think about safety, and how complex that concept can be, I think about the iceberg-depths of what that can mean for women of color, especially those who are survivors of abuse. With the recent surge of the Black Lives Matter Movement, and the suffering we all...