Get It, Girls

"The girl and the woman, in their new, individual unfolding, will only in passing be imitators of male behavior and misbehavior and repeaters of male professions. After the uncertainty of such transitions, it will become obvious that women were going through the abundance and variation of those (often ridiculous) disguises just so that they could purify their own essential nature and wash out the deforming influences of the other sex. Women, in whom life lingers and dwells more immediately, more fruitfully, and more confidently, must surely have become riper and more human in their depths than light, easygoing man, who is not pulled down beneath the surface of life by the weight of any bodily fruit and who, arrogant and hasty, undervalues what he thinks he loves. This humanity of woman, carried in her womb through all her suffering and humiliation, will come to light when she has stripped off the conventions of mere femaleness in the transformations of her outward status, and those men who do not yet feel it approaching will be astonished by it. Someday (and even now, especially in the countries of northern Europe, trustworthy signs are already speaking and shining), someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only life and reality: the female human being." Rilke

The Bloggess' Brave Post on Depression

Honest, brave description of a bout with depression. 

And chances are that many of your friends, family and coworkers are dealing with things like this.  Things that are killing them a little inside.  Things that kill people who don’t get help.  Silent, bloody battles that end with secret victors who can’t celebrate without shame.  I hope that this post changes this somehow.  I hope that you feel safe enough to be honest about the things you are the most ashamed of.  I hope you have someone there telling you “It’s okay.  You’re still the same person to me.”

The Girl Project

I got this book for my sister for Christmas. Kate Engelbrecht sent out thousands of cameras and questionnaires to teenage girls all over the U.S.  The book is a collection of the photographs and questionnaire responses.  

Teen readers will be rewarded with a wonderful set of sincere, deep messages and the reassurance that they are not alone.  

That thing where your best friend

lives in the Middle East in a time zone 6 hours ahead of you, but still manages to leave the song that fits your mood perfectly in your inbox to wake up to. That thing is so good.

Members of the national security team receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House on May 1.

From BuzzFeed’s list of the 45 Most Powerful photos of 2011 here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-most-powerful-photos-of-2011

Check out the gender in the room. You can see that they all feel what’s going on, but Hillary’s feelings are either deeper or more openly expressed.