The media needs to tell a story. And whenever there's a new generation, you know, with a new conversation, it's handy to say well, these are the angry young men, these are the hippies, these are the boomers.

Pain is real when you get other people to believe in it. If no one believes in it but you, your pain is madness or hysteria.

Modern cosmetic surgeons have a direct financial interest in a social role for women that requires them to feel ugly. They do not simply advertise for a share of a market that already exists: Their advertisements create new markets. It is a boom industry because it is influentially placed to create its own demand through the pairing of text with ads in women's magazines. The industry takes out ads and gets coverage; women get cut open. They pay their money and they takes their chances. As surgeons grow richer, they are able to command larger and brighter ad spaces.

From 1970 onwards, our culture told both sexes that individual expression was paramount. And for women, that was defined as the right to choose an interesting a career, a high-status mate, the desirable handbag or vacation, the perfect family size, and a definitionally fruitless quest for 'perfection.'

I would like to trust and believe that the American spirit of resistance will win the day, but I keep having to be this downer Cassandra person in saying that without dismantling this horrific legislative apparatus that has basically given George W. Bush dictatorial power, the spirit of America is not enough. We have to have that spirit, but we have to have tactics and strategies and a movement and a victory.

What editors are obliged to appear to say that

To live in a culture in which women are routinely naked where men aren't is to learn inequality in little ways all day long.