"Well there's the race layer as well. Indian woman are marketed to by companies selling skin lightening products, hair straighteners or in ways to make us as sexually repressed as possible so that we are pure and clean slates for our husbands. When I was a freshman in college someone told me I needed to get back to my initial shape when I entered college because, as an actor, I would be getting off the bus in New York City and competing with every other black woman for the same role. I'm not black. My first agent said to me, "I have to figure out how to market you as something other than the pretty woman who can sing." - Pallavi Sastry is a actor and filmmaker.
Laurence
"I have always wanted to be a man and I have always been proud to be a woman. It seems simpler to be a man, you know, I have my dick and my knife and I am ready. But I always knew that there was certain power in being a woman. Women have the skills and capacity to multitask, analyze, to look at problems, measure, assess them - we can even look at anything and know what container it will fit in - we just know how to get shit done." - Laurence is a European actor and dancer.
Billie Madley
"There's a consciousness about this election that is driving me and awakening parts of me I didn't even realize needed awakening. I have always been aware of feminist issues and was instrumental in launching the current burlesque movement. The sexiness about performance is also about women's power, beauty and artistry. There is a strength about women's sexuality, and burlesque is about artistic heroism." - Billie Madley is an actor, burlesque instructor and activist who pledged to wear her "Voting" clothing everyday from September - Nov 8th.