You are terrifying and strange and beautiful

On the issue of dignity:

http://www.sisteroftheyam.com/?p=167

"If anything, I am an accidental lady and probably not even a lady at all. It took me years to forgive that about myself."

"...what we need more than ladies is women."

"If you are a woman, your deservedness of empathy, defense, and safety is tied to your success at performing 'ladylikeness' and is a luxury that is hard to earn and easy to lose."

"...your skirt could be the right length; your faith could be biblically obedient; you could suffer in silence and sacrifice with enthusiasm; your politics could be dainty; your orgasms could be collateral accidents of your polite sex; you could be quiet, light, small, poised, dignified, neat, clean, stoic–whatever it takes to be easy to regard and love–and still be visited upon with as much violence, betrayal, and disrespect as the next woman."

"The cult of ladyhood is a fraudulent buy that can also strip women of their power, their resources, and their joy."

"many of us...are so fixated on policing the unladylike ways in which women hurt, that we find ourselves terrible advocates for those who need our courage the most."

"I imagine a world in which women and men are taught to tend to their desires absent the shame. I imagine a world in which together they rewrite the rules of their partnerships–rules that are moored onto their own tailored truths and wants instead of the fantasies of what they should believe and crave."

"We should trust that when we raise confident, empowered, fully themselves women, that what we covet about ladies–poise, tact, and style–can come from other, perhaps deeper, places than convention."

"We need women of defiance."