Our bodies testify

“Sometimes our bodies testify to the reality that something is broken, or that the world isn’t working as it should be, or that our bodies themselves are in trouble. Among other kinds of testimony, this deserves to be taken seriously.” Kate Manne writes about trusting our bodies when they tell us something—both our own bodies and those of the people around us. Anyone who works with me knows that I will often ask how something feels in your body, because I know—both first-hand and observationally—that bodies often contain very important messages about our experiences. But for a great many reasons—sexism and racism chief among them, as well as the ways our digital devices go to pains to convince us that we have bodies instead of that we are bodies—we are wont to ignore and discount those messages. I think we do so at our peril.