Writer

I try to understand faith and religion. I was raised by wonderful Catholic parents who were deeply faithful and taught us that God is a God of love.

I support anything that broadens the message of gender equality and tempers the stigma of the feminist label. We run into trouble, though, when we celebrate celebrity feminism while avoiding the actual work of feminism.

I cut an imposing figure. I am large, and I'm tall, and I have tattoos. I am actually really quiet and shy, but maybe people see me, and they don't want to step out of line, or equate disagreement with stepping out of line with a writer they like.

In truth, I don't care about making feminism more accessible to anyone.

Demands for solidarity can quickly turn into demands for groupthink, making it difficult to express nuance.

I tend to write three to four hours a day, depending - oftentimes very late at night. When I write on Twitter, I do other things: I'm working, grading, or reading, and I'm procrastinating, and I'll pop on Twitter and be like, 'Hey, what's up? Yogurt's delicious.'

Love your friends' kids, even if you don't want or like children. Just do it.

After the Boston Marathon bombings, people shared grief and outrage on social media.

You cannot reason with people who don't recognize the humanity in all of us.

Long walks on the beach are the supposed holy grail of a romantic evening. The beach becomes a kind of utopia - the place where all our dreams come true.

Margaret Sanger didn't just introduce the idea of birth control into our culture at large, she freed women from indenture to their bodies.

I live in Indiana and teach at Purdue University, a wonderful school with some of the brightest students I have ever had the privilege of working with. My colleagues are powerful and intelligent and kind. The cost of living is low, the prairie is wide, and on clear nights, I can see all the stars in the sky above.

I think one of the most important things we can do as feminists is acknowledge that, even though we have womanhood in common, we have to start to think about the ways in which we're different, how those differences affect us, and what kinds of needs we have based on our differences.

Placing Margaret Sanger on the $20 bill will remind us of what she has done for women and our reproductive health and how the fight for reproductive freedom is an ongoing one.

Something outrageous, in the truest sense of the word, is always happening. On social networks, we're always voicing our reactions to these outrageous events. We read essays and 'think pieces' about these outrageous events. We comment on the commentary. We do this because we can.

This is the real problem feminism faces. Too many people are willfully ignorant about what the word means and what the movement aims to achieve.

Florida is a strange place: hot, beautiful, ugly. I love it here, and how nothing makes sense but still, somehow, there is a rhythm.

We have to believe that we can hold different points of view without labeling each other bad feminists.

I was in love with the idea of love, so I created elaborate fictions for my relationships - fictions that allowed me to believe that what any given paramour and I shared looked a lot like love.

There are all kinds of people who continue to be largely ignored by advertisers, whose lives largely go unseen. They deserve their moment.