Winona Dimeo-Ediger

A New York Times editorial about women’s proclivity for apologizing for things that aren’t their fault has been making the rounds on social media this week. For many of us, the article hit home in a pretty profound way, especially the scene where the author, Sloane Crosley, described saying “sorry” multiple times for a restaurant messing up her order, something over which she had absolutely no control and in fact should have been receiving apologies for.

I ask myself these questions every time I’m considering a purchase, and if the answer to any of them is “no,” I put it back on the rack.

Guys, let's review some of the reasons that woman you've never met might not feel like chatting, shall we?

How does that old cliché go? “Love is not a noun, it’s a verb”? Loving your body is a verb. It’s an action — and in many ways it’s a sacred and defiant one.

Unflattering work uniforms are the WORST. I understand that office dress codes and work uniforms serve a purpose (creating a unified image for staff, signaling your role to customers/guests, protect your personal clothing from workplace messes, blah blah blah) but why would a company feel the need to subject their employees to a boxy corduroy vest?

scarf virtuoso. entrepreneur. bjork fan.

The thing is, we soak in these body-judging lessons from a very young age, before we even know how damaging they are. Some of the messages are implicit, like when we see a fat girl getting made fun of on the playground (or, for many of us, when we are the fat girl getting made fun of on the playground) and learn that being fat is not just wrong, it’s a punishable offense.

All the skimpy clothes that come along with this time of year give me anxiety.

Will you ever find a chair you like? Are there any good chairs left in this world? Why are so many people in your neighborhood attempting to sell “lightly used” sex chairs? What is a sex chair?

If you’re at an amazing restaurant, eat the amazing food there! Enjoy it! Don’t limit yourself to one bite of expensive entree because you frantically forced down a pound of undressed salad before the bread basket showed up. Eat salad for its own sake. Eat it because you want to eat it, not because you’re trying NOT to eat something else.