"The rules about women’s bodies were exacting, and you could always measure your distance from the ideal, even if it was not a great distance. And even if you got over your imperfections of form, the realities of biology, of bodily functions and fluids, were always at odds with the feminine ideal, and a host of products, jokes, and sneers reminded you of that"

                                             Rebecca Solnit, Recollections of My Nonexistence: A Memoir