Kate
I’m Kate. I’m a blogger, freelance writer, positive body image advocate, and professional singer. I write a lot. Books (if you’re an agent, call me immediately), articles, short stories, the occasional song and even more occasional poem. Lists of things to do. Lists of things that I really, really need to get done NOW.
This is basically what I wrote for Linked-In, which was the last time I sat down and tried to compile my accomplishments in a way that would cause the people who didn’t immediately find me really arrogant to think I might be cool:
I got a Master’s at Columbia in 2010, and then got brave/stupid and started writing almost full-time. I started this blog, which still looks pretty backwoods but has a lot of readers and has been syndicated a bunch on Jezebel.com, the Huffington Post, the big Australian women’s site Mamamia, and more. I was recently included in Ignite Social Media’s list of “100 Women Bloggers You Should Be Reading.” Hell yeah.
I also blog about education and homeschooling/unschooling at Skipping School and write a column for the popular alt-ed magazine Home Education Magazine. I am a regular contributor at The Frisky. My work has appeared on Salon, the Forward, Longreads, the Hairpin, Penelope Trunk’s blog, AOL’s front page, AOL’s MyDaily, A Practical Wedding, and more. I’ve been linked to by Forbes.com and interviewed by PBS, the BBC, and iVillage.
If I ever get really famous, I will replace all of that bragging with a single link to the New York Times’ article about my incredible life. That’ll be classy.
In the meantime, I continue to suspect that I am probably not that incredible at life.
I am working on a fantasy novel and a memoir about homeschooling. I am the part time chazzan (person who sings in Hebrew a lot and leads services with the rabbi) at a synagogue in central NJ.
I look like this:
At least sometimes. Sometimes I look a lot worse in photos. Sometimes I look better, if I take a hundred of myself and then fool around with the lighting in photoshop. I’ve done that. Too many times, probably.
Kate on February 28th 2010
Pearl responded on 16 Mar 2010 at 2:17 pm #
You ARE gorgeous.
Shyra responded on 17 Mar 2010 at 5:46 pm #
Let’s talk about how your objectivity was shattered later on in life as opposed to when you go to like elementary school. That’s when most people have that first epiphany of I’m different from others. I realized I was different and different can be gorgeous. Why not redefine gorgeous to include all flaws that make us imperfectly perfect?
Kate responded on 17 Mar 2010 at 10:52 pm #
Shyra–absolutely. I definitely want to talk about all that. In fact, that’s what the piece I just posted starts to discuss! This is such an important topic, and I appreciate you bringing it up.
Amy responded on 21 Mar 2010 at 3:29 am #
Love you, love your grandma, love your chocolate cake.
Say Yes to Salad - OY VEY! Manhattan! Couches! Smoothies! responded on 26 Mar 2010 at 11:38 pm #
[...] Kate would say. We’ve been hanging out so much I’m starting to use her [...]
Maggie Walks - Intensely Healthy Dessert responded on 06 Apr 2010 at 9:13 pm #
[...] my walking ways. I did 2 miles to work and then a little over a mile at lunch (while chatting with Kate). Wish I could have done more, but I had a lot to [...]
Liberal East Texan responded on 17 Apr 2010 at 8:56 pm #
Hey, I found your blog via HuffPo.
Don’t be down on yourself about your looks. I think you look great.
ss responded on 26 Apr 2010 at 2:43 pm #
i read a few posts and didn’t connect the photos with the rants. i don’t understand. you are absolutely beautiful. i’m wondering by what standards you are judging yourself but if it’s mainstream barbie standards, please drop them. that’s like judging sound politics by tea party standards. why are you using mainstream standards?
i’m not syaing this to make you feel better. i was honestly confused when i came to this page and was able to definitively connect your picture to your statements.
stop your own madness (you’re the only one who can).
Kate responded on 26 Apr 2010 at 6:10 pm #
@SS
I was concerned about using photos on the site, because I didn’t really want to give insecurity a face. But the truth is, that’s exactly why I’m writing. Because it doesn’t really matter what I look like. It matters how I feel. And we live in a society that places ridiculous standards on women. Sometimes I feel stupid for feeling unattractive, but then I look around and see that so so so many girls and women are feeling the same pressures. Which is why I’m here, writing about it.
And by the way, there are much, much worse photos of me. But I’m too embarrassed to put them up!
Eat the Damn Cake » Maggie: Censor Me. responded on 26 Apr 2010 at 10:48 pm #
[...] Kate [...]
April responded on 14 May 2010 at 7:40 am #
You are so right…we can’t all look like Elizabeth Hurley. We need to get over it and just live with what we have. I have red hair, freckles and chipmunk cheeks and if people don’t like it they can look the other way. Thank goodness for Lasiks.
The Shoe Astronauts lied to you. « Beauty Schooled responded on 17 May 2010 at 7:04 am #
[...] post is cross-posted over at Eat the Damn Cake, one of my new favorite body image blogs. Kate and Maggie are honest, hilarious, and oh so smart and insightful, so do click over and be their [...]
Roast Veggie and Goat “Cheese” Wrap, and Two Announcements responded on 18 May 2010 at 9:58 pm #
[...] you a head’s up that I’ll have a guest post up sometime tomorrow and/or Thursday on Kate’s blog, Eat the Damn Cake. The blog, which has been up and running for a few months, is full of [...]
Lauren responded on 19 May 2010 at 3:43 pm #
I think you are very pretty! What are you talking about silly girl?
[Cross-Post] A Vow of Complimenting from Kate at Eat The Damn Cake. « Beauty Schooled responded on 27 May 2010 at 9:26 am #
[...] around again, because now I’ve bullied asked nicely and today, we have ETDC’s very own Kate, cross-posting over here about why we should all be giving out a lot more [...]
David Jaffa responded on 08 Jun 2010 at 4:30 am #
Dear Kate,
The Real God knows that you are searching the essence of realities or truths. Or even the “right truths”. That was what Abraham did when he searched for his real God.
Why do not you read the Old Testament (Torah), New Testament and The Last Testament (Qur’an) to find the right answers?
I have found a few things in the Qur’an related to your searches:
Yunus 10:36
Most of them follow naught but conjecture. Assuredly conjecture can by no means take the place of truth. Lo! Allah is Aware of what they do.
An-Najm 53:28
And they have no knowledge thereof. They follow but a guess, and lo! a guess can never take the place of the truth.
Al-An’am 6:116
If thou obeyedst most of those on earth they would mislead thee far from Allah’s way. They follow naught but an opinion, and they do but guess.
Hope you will find a lot more things reading all of those Holy Books.
Sincerely
David
Note: Could I have your email address?
Dawn responded on 27 Jun 2010 at 3:18 pm #
When my grandmother was 98 1/2 years old she went into a physical decline. In the hospital my sisters and I sat with her, combed her hair & rubbed her hands. I remember a nurse came in and looked at my grandmother. Suddenly I realized that to the nurse my grandmother looked old, haggard, her hair was whisps of white. The nurse could not see my grandmother! She could not see how lovely she was, how funny, how kind. She couldn’t see my grandmother’s long life, her strength thru hard times, her faithful love for her family. The nurse could only see with her eyes. I looked am my grandmother. I COULD see her. It was like magic.
Kate, if you are with people who can’t see you, you are with the wrong people.
Jen responded on 29 Jun 2010 at 10:05 am #
Found you through Jezebel, great blog. You are very pretty and I would KILL for those lips! Very funny story about wedding shopping. I was one of the least bride-y brides ever myself.
Caryn responded on 30 Jun 2010 at 5:04 pm #
Hello! I also found you through Jezebel. I don’t have much time to write this second, but I liked what you wrote very much. The funny thing is that I am having the opposite experience. I didn’t ever think of myself as overweight, but I did take off 20lb in the last year, and it has been a mindf**k! I feel adjusted now, but for a few months, it was pretty difficult! I wondered sometimes whether I had done an anti-feminist thing by losing weight, whether I was perpetuating a standard of beauty that I don’t totally buy into. I get so many compliments on how I look and more attention in general, where before I felt quite overlooked — and yet I am the same person inside. Keep on, Kate!
Carol Adams responded on 06 Jul 2010 at 2:49 pm #
Honey, honey honey…. you are just GORGEOUS!!
Gorgeous skin, beautiful doe eyes, amazing lips, great eyebrows, wonderful oval face shape and very cute chin!
I hate it that you once thought you were beautiful and now you don’t. I’m in my 50s and can so relate. however now I look back at photos of myself remembering how I didn’t feel beautiful and was! It is disheartening that we women do this to ourselves.
Sue responded on 09 Jul 2010 at 12:25 pm #
I stumbled upon your site while looking for cake blogs. (I just started my own blog) I am inspired by the 2 articles that I just read and I can’t wait to read more.
MK (Casey) van Bronkhorst responded on 16 Aug 2010 at 3:06 pm #
Our Blog and Size Acceptance sections at Plus Size 411 need you and your level-headed outlook. Eat the Damn Cake fits in perfectly, and many more women need to have this resource at their fingertips.
http://www.plussize411.com – listings are free, human-reviewed and -approved before visible (which will take about 10 seconds after I get your listing).
[Guest Post] On (Not) Being Transvestite Barbie « Beauty Schooled responded on 03 Sep 2010 at 9:50 am #
[...] Beauty Schooled readers know I have a total blog crush on Kate of Eat the Damn Cake. If you don’t know that, you should A) check out her blog, especially [...]
Noel responded on 13 Sep 2010 at 2:48 pm #
Kate,
Saw this today and thought of you and everyone contributing to/commenting on “Eat the Damn Cake:”
Tired of talking about how toxic our culture is for girls and women, particularly in relation to their bodies? Craving to take action? Brimming with good ideas but suffering from a lack of support? Then this is your moment.
The Women’s Therapy Centre Institute is thrilled to announce the LOVED BODIES, BIG IDEAS Contest.
You can find more info here: http://www.endangeredspecieswomen.org/2010/09/13/announcing-loved-bodies-big-ideas-contest/
I feel like the ETDC community would have lots of great ideas to contribute!
Sue responded on 04 Jan 2011 at 3:03 pm #
Kate: I had to write and compliment your article about your nose. When I was in college. I too had the same misgivings about my appearance. At that tender age in womanhood, you and I could have been doppelgangers. I am 59 now, holding on with all my fingers and toes, fighting the sweeping black hole of age. When it came to my nose, I would look in the mirror and cringe. I have Jewish and Native American background combined with 57 other varieties.
One balmy afternoon in my twenties, I was out shopping. A young boy riding a skateboard, passed me on the sidewalk and clucked out loud to his friend, “Hey man, the wicked witch of the West!” I was crushed.
Since I am a pain whimp, and afraid of doctors and surgery, I just decided to go the “self love” route. It’s too bad celebrities don’t think before they leap. They would be much more interesting and better role models for their fans. For instance, look at Jennifer Grey, she devalued her heritage and ultimately herself, by having her nose job. Now she looks like everyone else in Hollywood. In my opinion, she could have been another Barbara Streisand, who, in my humble opinion proves, the old axiom, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, and eventually fades away.
Anyway, thanks for an interesting read.
Ben responded on 04 Jan 2011 at 4:03 pm #
I was struck by your recent article about nose jobs. Having seen your original picture, for me, I was in shock why you would change a thing. Perhaps my perspective will inspire you.
Like you, I grew up Jewish. But despite not being adopted, I don’t look Jewish. I have blonde hair and blue eyes. Now…I know..I shouldn’t be complaining (because society tells me I shouldn’t???), but because of this, I grew up adoring woman who looked Jewish. It made me feel like I was….among my own. I adored woman who beared resemblence to Barbara Streisand–rather than run from them. I not only don’t care what other people’s sense of beauty is, I adored the idea that the woman I thought most physically attractive were the one’s society “so-called” pursued less.
Kate, you’re only “problem” I say tongue in cheek, is that you weren’t also weren’t born with somewhat of a lazy eye like Babs..for if you were, surely, were I not happily married, I would propose to you on our first date.
Your appearance is perfect. Don’t change a thing!
Claire responded on 04 Jan 2011 at 4:32 pm #
Kate: I, too, read your article about your nose job. I must say I do see that you are truly a beautiful woman just as you are. I am a woman photographer who has three model looking children in their 30s, and what I see in your photo is Leonardo da Vinci’s La Scapigliata. This piece of work of his was shown in the movie Ever After with Drew Barrymore playing Cinderella. It is also a piece of work that portaits a woman with such elegance and beauty and at the same time it shows her strength and intellgence. If I were you I’d cherish that look. God has truly blessed you , my dear.
Jules responded on 04 Jan 2011 at 5:48 pm #
ah Kate, I’ve only just read a few paragraphs about your life and I already love you! I can’t wait to learn more about you. And I am sure that without you even knowing, you’ve boosted my confidence today after reading your article featured on AOL’s main page. Thank-you.
Jim Evans responded on 04 Jan 2011 at 6:40 pm #
Hey Kate, just read your My Daily piece about the nose job. For what it’s worth, I’m an artist (waspy/Italian) who lives on a farm in MD and I think you’re beautiful, absolutely beautiful. You could be the twin of a dear friend of mine who also lives in Manhatten, also beautiful. The only acceptance that matters is your own.
Lizzy responded on 04 Jan 2011 at 7:20 pm #
I just read your article on your nose job(s). Glad to see you didn’t go any further. If you look at Jennifer Gray, changing her nose made her unrecognizable. She lost the part of her self that made her unique and memorable, her nose. Sure she looks good, but she now looks like everyone else in a crowd. Embrace your nose, it suits your face, and really you are quite pretty the way you are. You just need to believe in yourself.
Stephanie responded on 15 Jan 2011 at 1:23 am #
kate, I love your work. I found your style refreshing. don’t ever change. your unique, and I enjoyed reading your article unschooled
I agree lots of kids get screwed up in regular school.
keep doing what your doing!
blessings!
stephanie
Dawn responded on 17 Jan 2011 at 7:16 pm #
Our paths are reversed. I grew up in public school where my strong gymnastic body was considered “big”. My brother named me “Goodyear” and my parents named me “Dumb Blonde”.
When I became a homeschooling/unschooling mom, my flaws diminished. I became a red-head (it suits me better). When my grandbabies were born (young as I was), I felt awesomely attractive. They love me, no matter.
You, Kate, are simply awesome.
I
mlvlnd responded on 01 Mar 2011 at 8:18 pm #
” … really, we should just eat the damn cake.”
I totally agree with you, Kate, really and truly, and I thank you so much for sharing your gifts of creativity and language.
Best always,
mlvlnd
Jackie responded on 07 Mar 2011 at 12:50 am #
I think that a big part of the problem is that people buy into a standard of beauty and impose that upon others and us. There are so very many versions of beautiful and attractive, and also so very many ways that we can fall short of the mark.
I was speaking with a fitness trainer about how J. Lo probably has to work to perfect her version of a butt, and he said his girlfriend was lucky since she didn’t have a butt, and that was so weird to me because buttlessness, in my world, is seen as a huge (tiny?) flaw.
There are so many standards being bought into, and while we are allowed to embrace our own preferences, it is sad that often we limit our ability to connect meaningfully with others because they don’t fall into the limits we impose on others by holding dear our own standards of perfection, as shaped by the world we live in.
[Never Say Diet] Let (Everyone) Eat Cake! | Beauty Schooled responded on 16 Mar 2011 at 10:53 am #
[...] on Never Say Diet, I’m interviewing the always awesome Kate of Eat The Damn Cake about her new project. (Hint: That’s part of it, up there.) We chatted about cake until both [...]
Norm responded on 19 Mar 2011 at 6:44 pm #
So…I just read your interview on AOL about ‘boy-men’. The first thing that struck me was that ‘provisional adulthood’ has been around since mid-Piaget. I’m not a “Y”…in fact I’m close to retirement. That stage of my life was marked by a mix of working the auto trades to continue being a ‘professional student’. Women’s Lib was in full swing, and I taught a course in the local free university called “Auto-Communications for Women” (University for Man, Manhattan, KS, ca. 1973-77). Boomer young men were faced with the daunting task of even equalling, much less surpassing, the men of the previous generation, who had saved the world from the Nazi’s and Imperial Japan. Fathers were primarily absent. Leave it to Beaver it was not.
.
Nonetheless, I was able to obtain a broad-based education, complete my military obligation (there was a draft in those days) and pay for university without resort to debilitating student loans. There was, of course, no work in my degree field (wildlife conservation), so a second degree was next on the agenda. I wasn’t sure I was ready to be a parent (mine did the best they could, and there were gaps in social/cultural arenas). Still, I gave it a try. Didn’t work very well…we’d both brought our family dynamics to the marriage (her binge-drinking, wife-beating, disappear-for-a-month-at-a-time Dad established her expectations, my paucity of emotions except depression alternating with anger followed my family dynamic modeling). I didn’t live up to her family model, nor to her expectations for emotional intimacy. I was divorced, at her initiation the day I started my first ‘real’ job in biology, as a county health inspector. Despite her having just finished a counseling psychology MA I’d half paid for, she was not willing to GO to counseling together. She did gift me with a book on co-dependency on parting, though it apparently took her 3+years to grasp that it might have been hard for me to be co-dependent by myself
Boy-men: our bodies (and minds, biologically) evolved when the roles of men and women were very different. Salt, fat, sugar were the ‘gems’ of survival…so we crave them. Guys did a lot of physical stuff. So did women. Guys tended to do the heavier stuff, or what involved more traveling away from the group. That remained true through about the 1940′s. There’s not a lot of that to do these days, at least not that pays well. Our minds and bodies are still programmed for a way of life that doesn’t exist. Through the ‘Industrial Age’ we could at least see some semblence of the ‘old ways’.
Single Mom is a challenging path…and it exposes boys to primarily female role models in real life. It’s pretty well established that the primal learning mode is mimicry (the first word most children use frequently is the one they hear the most…’No’). Is it, then, any wonder that the caricatured masculine role models from the entertainment industry don’t yield a very functional man, and/or evoke confustion about male role(s)?
There’s much more, but the bottom line is as a larger culture (men and women together) we have a responsbility to do better at raising our children (of both genders) as a part of being responsible for the shifting socisl/cultural landscape our evolving world offers.
Thanks for doing your part to get the conversation started back up again. Be well, Norm
chopinandmysaucepan responded on 13 Apr 2011 at 8:49 am #
No more self deprecating comments coz you’re lovely! We should all eat the damn cake, and not share it either!
katie responded on 04 May 2011 at 4:16 am #
You are beautiful.
000 responded on 20 Jul 2011 at 8:43 am #
you have a solid margin of ‘unugliness’ in this photo, so you probably aren’t ‘ugly’ in your ‘uglier’ photos.
also, recognize that your hair is shorter than many women can wear theirs.
you look reasonably slim, certainly not ‘fat’.
i don’t think anyone can prevent other people from having opinions about level of beauty. that leaves “not worrying about it” as the alternative for the ‘less blessed’.
i don’t think “big noses” (iranian, indian, french, dutch, ??) matter much.
careful makeup and some surgical slimming? http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=Reshma+Shetty
her nose isn’t “tiny”, and she’s beautiful.
julia roberts. i think she’s had some nose surgery, but has ‘wisely’ kept most of its distinctive look.
Lisa responded on 27 Aug 2011 at 7:27 pm #
Hi Kate,
Love your cake eating photos. I’m a personal trainer in NYC and I’m with you on this~ While I don’t recommend eating cake as a daily diet…when you really want cake~eat the damn cake!! And I mean EAT THE DAMN CAKE. Have a hunky satisfying serving and stop tormenting yourself. Enjoy it, let it go and move on.
And by the way, you are adorable. Hope you know that.
Lisa
Victoria Mixon responded on 12 Oct 2011 at 3:34 pm #
Kate, I love your piece on unschooling in Salon. My husband & I are unschooling our 14-year-old, and we’ve all had exactly the experience you describe: a wonderful life without classrooms or rules because–you know what?–we just like being together.
I’m an indie editor blogging about writing, interviewing folks in the field of writing, answering questions about writing on my (secret) advice column. I even write books about writing.
I’m so pleased to meet you, here in the confluence of these extraordinary worlds: writing and unschooling.
Marjorie responded on 12 Oct 2011 at 7:10 pm #
Why did this occur to you when you got to college? I don’t agree with your conclusion at all (I think you are beautiful). I ask because I am unschooling my daughters who are now 9 and 11 and am wondering what will happen to them when they go off to college. I loved your salon piece except that it’s very depressing. Well-written, entertaining, but I want to strangle Mrs. Grimini. Keep writing, we’ll keep reading.
Jimmie Froehlich responded on 15 Oct 2011 at 2:38 am #
Hi,
I read your article (?) in Salon about unschooling. You are right that college is boring and not just because of many of the teachers. The lack of interest among most students is what is most alarming. Thanks for your excellent writing.
Things to celebrate: transitions, people, Tom « Dances For Dull Moments responded on 21 Oct 2011 at 1:52 pm #
[...] Kate Fridkis writing about why she loves being married (my favorite reason being ‘freedom’- which [...]
Body Image Booster: Embracing Your Real Body | Weightless responded on 23 Jan 2012 at 10:04 am #
[...] week freelance writer and blogger Kate, who blogs at “Eat the Damn Cake,” wrote a brilliant post about these several bodies. [...]
[Cross-Post] A Vow of Complimenting from Kate at Eat The Damn Cake. responded on 25 Jan 2012 at 6:14 pm #
[...] around again, because now I’ve bullied asked nicely and today, we have ETDC’s very own Kate, cross-posting over here about why we should all be giving out a lot more compliments. Read [...]
Alena responded on 28 Jan 2012 at 3:18 am #
You’re beautiful. I love this blog.
Slava responded on 28 Jan 2012 at 6:44 pm #
I ended up here by accident (searching up a photo of a girl with a ukulele) – so happy about it. Love your style of writing, and the way you see the world. Best,
Slava
Carol responded on 29 Jan 2012 at 3:53 am #
I always think it’s cool when people are ‘freelance’. I would never have the courage to not have a stable job. Good for you !!