Girls are not just put on earth for men's amusement while they do the important things.

Ambition is something you turn into a plan to create an online personality, a brand, a network.

Sadly, too much has changed about publishing ... not only does attractiveness matter to agents and editors, but there's no room anymore for a reclusive writer.

I think a certain kind of sexism is so matter-of-fact, and has been for so long, that young women feel less valuable or second-tier if their gender and attractiveness or sexual desirability are not being commented on in the workplace.

In college, unable to be "special" - or in demand - as a girl, I made myself useful, even essential, in my microcosm - as a writer and photographer for the band, particularly for the band director. My "specialness" was to produce something of value, not to look like something (with that different kind of "value"), so I was still fundamentally invisible, but had a significant purpose.

I occasionally feel contempt for that attitude [degree of sexual desire towards me] when I perceive it, but maybe that's not fair. By our culture we've been taught who is most valued and who is not.

Attention equals importance equals value equals ego. Or, more realistically, Attention equals success.