Femlandia

civilization is a construct, an abstraction dependent on thousands of trivial variables.

You want to know how people end up homeless, how anyone could turn away or shut a door or hang up a phone? Just start asking for help.

Women are shamed for this kind of curiosity, cursed for its devastating, world-ruining effects. Much more than men, I think, as I feel the cool metal of the doorknob in my fist. Where are the Bible stories and myths about men screwing everything up? Why are women always compared to cats, curious and relentless, happily wreaking havoc because they just. Want. To. Know the goddamned answer? Why all this, and never a thought to the fact that more men have torn up the world than women?

Choice is such a tricky concept, maybe a little like freedom. Freedom is fine, until you add another word at the end of it all. You're free to do what you want... but. Sure, go ahead... unless. Some inner philosopher of mine asks what happens to choice if we qualify it. I suppose it becomes something other than a choice.

Curiosity is what we need if we want to know what's real, terrifying or not.

I’m the mother, which inevitably means all fingers point to me when things turn to shit.

saw complexity in beings that are thought to be far less complex than we are, and I think maybe there’s some hope for us after all.

I tell myself to remember that negligence isn’t the same thing as evil.

Win understood from an early age that men were animals. She would have called them pigs but found no reason to insult a perfectly good pig with the comparison. Hyenas, maybe. Jackals. Anything wild that ran in a pack and looked out for itself first. But not anything that could be considered cute, edible, or useful.