Thinking about what the last year and the last decade has meant for American women, I kept coming back to the increasingly cruel physical scrutiny that they’re subject to. Impossible beauty standards seem like a subconscious cultural reaction against women’s growing power. It’s fine for women to do everything men do — as long as they stay skinny, sexy, young, and soignée at the same time. The surveillance culture of the Internet and the tabloids sends a message to all women that to let oneself go for even a moment is to open oneself up to a psychotic Greek chorus of abuse. Even as our politics get a little bit better for women, the broader public climate grows more unforgiving by the day.