We could shave our heads, burn our bras, protest the patriarchy, and criticize the male gaze, but Cha suggests a simpler solution: true friendship among women.

When can I see you? we asked each other, but we really wanted to know, when can we be in the same room? When can we kiss, touch, and hold one another? How long must we emulate the sexless lives of hermits? A few more weeks, a few more months, a whole year?

The reasons why my own family chose to immigrate illegally are so complex and personal. How could someone who has not shared this fear or uncertainty know our estrangement, let alone write about it?

Levy, who cries on escalators, doesn’t hate her children. She doesn’t hate her soon-to-be-ex-husband. Rather, she hates that a woman must extend herself to assume a domestic role and become a stranger to the person she once was.