1. To the best of my recollection, reading this essay was the first encounter I had with Iris Young. With the memories of having grown up a classic “tomboy,” playing road hockey and pick-up football with the neighborhood boys, suffering in the leotards I was made to wear on special occasions for their unfortunate ability to thoroughly hide my bruised shins and scraped knees, I was fascinated by her analysis of girls’ body comportment. It spoke to me in a more intimate way than any other philosophical work I had encountered. I am continuously impressed by Iris's ability to find the common cause in our everyday, to theorize from life and its living, and thereby to weave seemingly disparate topics and issues together into a coherent whole—a whole that makes sense of the world and affords one the tools to make sense of oneself in it.

2. Aside from the opening poem and closing interview, the essays in this volume are not collected under any general categories, because in large part they are as similar as they are diverse. However, each shares some themes and conceptual devices with those on either side. This provides the mode of order. Any other ordering would have seemed ill fitting in some respects while sensible in other respects. Hence, the reader may proceed in the order provided, or in any order of her own choosing.