"If I have thinner thighs
and shinier hair, will I be happier?"
you just need to meet a group of models,
because they have the thinnest thighs,
the shiniest hair and the coolest clothes,
and they're the most physically
insecure women probably on the planet.
When I was writing this talk,
I found it very difficult
to strike an honest balance,
because on the one hand,
I felt very uncomfortable
to come out here and say,
"Look I've received all these benefits
from a deck stacked in my favor,"
and it also felt really uncomfortable
to follow that up with,
"and it doesn't always make me happy."
But mostly it was difficult to unpack
a legacy of gender and racial oppression
when I am one
of the biggest beneficiaries.
But I'm also happy
and honored to be up here
and I think that it's great
that I got to come
before 10 or 20 or 30 years had passed
and I'd had more agency in my career,
because maybe then I wouldn't tell
the story of how I got my first job,
or maybe I wouldn't tell the story
of how I paid for college,
which seems so important right now.
If there's a takeaway to this talk,
I hope it's that we all feel
more comfortable acknowledging