Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

by Lindy West

Progress is still winning. Be brave, and be shrill.

(The fact that ANY kid wants to be a veterinarian is bananas, by the way—whoever does veterinary medicine’s PR among preschool-aged children should be working in the fucking White House.)

The Queen of Hearts I do not even know this bitch’s deal. In Alice in Wonderland, her only personality trait is “likes the color red,” she doesn’t seem to do any governing aside from executing minors for losing at croquet, and she is married to a one-foot-tall baby with a mustache.

But also, you guys, Miss Piggy is kind of a rapist? Maybe if you love Kermie so much you should respect his bodily autonomy. The dude is physically running away from you.

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.”

We then had a screaming fight, which culminated in him attempting to “slam” the door in my face with a flourish, except he lived in a dank basement accessed via a garage and could only emphatically push the garage door button and stand there glaring as it “whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”ed to the ground in slow motion.

I hate the disorienting limbo between too visible and invisible;

I can understand if the Internet had just been invented Tuesday, and you sincerely thought, “Oh, perhaps sniffmychode89 has some constructive perspective on the politics of female body hair.” However, I, Lindy West, have now been using this virtual garbage dispenser for literally twenty years, and maybe one comment in fifty contains anything other than condescending, contrarian, and/or abusive trash. I have no excuse. When I click, it is because I am a fool.

Other people’s grief is not about you; letting self-consciousness supersede empathy is barbaric.