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What draws me to Roxane Gay’s writing is that she doesn’t paint herself in a pretentious light. We are not going to do anything perfectly. Then they get knocked off when they fuck it up. People who are placed on pedestals are expected to pose, perfectly. I am a bad feminist because I never want to be placed on a Feminist Pedestal. I embrace the label of bad feminist because I am human. This line always stood out to me, anyone who has ever considered themselves a feminist has had the thought “ I shouldn’t like typical girly things because (insert reason why) and that’s demeaning to women.” Gay took this idea and confronted it head-on saying.
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If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink- all shades of pink. She touched on points in some essays and these points struck home. When I first read her book Bad Feminist, I found truth in much of what she said. She is a voice that isn’t afraid to tell it like it is. In the midst of all this Gay’s writing career has grown. As of 2018, she is a guest professor for Yale. After leaving EIU she was an associate professor of creative writing in the Masters Of Fine Arts program at Purdue University from 2014-2018. During this time she published a short story collection titled Ayiti (2011), a novel A Untamed State, and the easy collection Bad Feminist. Her book Bad Feminist hit all the right notes, bringing a perspective and saying things that we’ve all worried about or questioned when calling ourselves Feminist or simply wondered if we were doing this whole “Human” thing right.īefore writing Bad Feminist Gay was an assistant English professor at Eastern Ilinois University in 2010, while at EIU she was a contributing editor for Bluestem magazine. Roxane Gay is a breath of fresh queer air in today’s tumultuous climate. Her essays are fun, truthful, informative, and sarcastic. But when I did all bets were off I devoured her work. I’m going to be real with everyone I did not discover Roxane Gay until her appearance on The L Word: Gen Q.