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" Now that I know how birth works-now that I've been talked through labor by that quiet-voiced woman-I feel I've finally been told what my task is. It's simple-so simple I'm amazed I didn't know it before. One morning I am going to wake up, and before I sleep again, I will have to tick off a long list of contractions, one by one. And when I get to the last one, I will have my girl. Each one of these will be a job in itself-a minute-long experience that would alarm anyone suddenly struck by it, without warning-but I know the one fact that makes it easy: there is nothing awry. Everything is as it should be. Unlike some pains, these don't signal something going wrong but something going right. This is what I did not realize the first time, when I prayed wildly for these pains to stop. I didn't know then that these pains were actually the answer, and that their every alternative was much, much worse. Now I know what they are, and what they're for, I greet each one with calm cheer: 60 seconds to breathe through, as limp as a sleeping child, so that there is nowhere for this wash of sensation to snag-no tensed muscle it can get caught on. I am a clear glass of water, leaf-smoke blown sideways in the wind; empty space, for a moon to sail through. "
― Caitlin Moran , How to Be a Woman
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" A lo largo de los siglos, se pueden leer historias de mujeres que, contra todo pronóstico, llegaron a ser mujeres de verdad, pero que acabaron transgrediendo. siendo infelices, viendo coartada su libertad o simplemente destruidas porque a su alrededor la sociedad seguía equivocada. Si muestras a cualquier joven una de nuestras heroicas pioneras -Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Parker, Frida Kahlo, Cleopatra, Boudicca, Juana de Arco-, le estarás mostrando casi siempre a una mujer que acabó aplastada. Los triunfos ganados con mucho esfuerzo pueden verse invalidados si vives en un ambiente donde tus victorias se consideran una amenaza, un error, algo de mal gusto o -lo más crucial para una adolescente- que sencillamente no está en onda. Pocas chicas elegirán hacer lo que está bien -lo que está bien en el fondo de su ser inteligente y hermoso- a costa de quedarse solas. "
― Caitlin Moran , How to Be a Woman