Catherine Gigante-Brown

A new U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendation on mammograms ensures more women will die of breast cancer.

I try. I really do. But whenever I attempt to embrace my husband Peter’s Cuban culture, I always screw up.

BCBs are loud and proud and refuse to go down easy. And quietly. We have things to say. We have things to teach. We still have life to live. And damn it, we are and we will. With one breast. With no breasts. With reconstruction surgery.

Instead of categorizing people as different colors, I proposed we might begin to think of each other as Earthtones—because our skin colors are based on hues from the earth. Just as the planet is made up of a myriad of shades, it’s still one cohesive entity. We can be thought of as one entity also.

Why, when I'm cool with being a salt-and-pepper chick, does it so clearly unnerve others?

"Sometimes David wore his hair spiked like a cockscomb. Others, he wore it feathery like a baby chick. He wore his Mohawk to summer camp (exchanging encouraging head chucks with another older camper who sported one, too) and even to Vacation Bible School—no judgment there."

Wrinkles or lifelines? Chunky or curvaceous? The choice is yours.

A midtown Manhattan studio was recently the site of liberation-both on and offscreen-when Shenshean

At first, I felt like an abandoned ten-year-old, dropped off at a remote summer camp—with the extra added attraction of no cell phone reception or Wi-Fi. I thought the hardest part of the weekend was going to be picking out a robe. Boy, was I wrong!

I asked a handful of women: why are people so scared of ladyparts?