Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

by Lindy West

The real scam is that being bones isn’t enough either. The game is rigged. There is no perfection.

We do not stigmatize people with stomach flu. The active ingredient in period stigma is misogyny.

maybe it’s not a coincidence that, in a country where half the population’s normal reproductive functions are stigmatized, American uterus- and vagina-havers are still fighting tooth and nail to have those same reproductive systems fully covered by the health insurance that we pay for.

Denying people access to value is an incredibly insidious form of emotional violence, one that our culture wields aggressively and liberally to keep marginalized groups small and quiet.

You can’t fix a problem by targeting its victims.

comedy felt like a friend. That’s its greatest magic—more than any other art form, it forces you to interact with it; it forces you to feel not alone. Because you can’t be alone when someone’s making you laugh, physically reaching into your body and eliciting a response. Comedy is also smart. It speaks the truth.

in a nation where puritanical gasbags have a death grip on our public education system, can we really expect ironclad safe sex practices in people from whom comprehensive sex ed has been withheld? Blaming and shaming people for their own illnesses has always been the realm of moralists and hypocrites, of the anti-sex status quo.

Art isn’t indiscriminate shit-flinging. It’s pure communication, crafted with intention and care.

what we say affects the world we live in, that words are both a reflection of and a catalyst for the way our society operates.

Feminists don’t single out rape jokes because rape is “worse” than other crimes—we single them out because we live in a culture that actively strives to shrink the definition of sexual assault;

If exceptional violence illuminates our human capacity for empathy, then structural violence shows the darkness of indifference.”

Women, it seemed, were obliged to be thick-skinned about their own rapes, while comics remained too thin-skinned to handle even mild criticism.

There is nothing novel or comedic or righteous about men using the threat of sexual violence to control noncompliant women. This is how society has always functioned. Stay indoors, women. Stay safe. Stay quiet. Stay in the kitchen. Stay pregnant. Stay out of the world. If you want to talk about silencing, censorship, placing limits and consequences on speech, this is what it looks like.

Just because you haven’t personally experienced something doesn’t make it not true. What a concept.