Do you ever think about how fucked up it is to grow up as a girl?

For the first 5 years of your life all anyone ever tells you, thinking you don’t understand, is how pretty you are. My friends who have their own little girls worry about two things during these years: 1) daughters thinking their only attribute is beauty and 2) child predators.

You are treated different than the boys and having no way of understanding or processing this inequality, you internalize it. There must be something wrong with you. And there are the awkward years. The boys have it too but they just ride it out. Girls are encouraged to fix it- cover it up with makeup or distract from it with  clothes. If you are not fortunate enough to be able to do that for various reasons, then you are the gawky, ugly, awkward girl… not that I’m writing from experience… and no, I will not include pictures from my youth with this post.

For years, your learning was on par with the rest and suddenly the math gets convoluted. You don’t get invited to join the competitive academic clubs- that’s only for the girls who really excel- your potential in these fields aren’t what they used to be somehow… I didn’t think I’d changed but… I guess they must be right.

At least you have music/art/popularity/boobs/the mall, right? I’m generalizing here but from what I saw in those junior high/high school years, the bar was set much higher for the girls to get to the things that were merited, valued- academia, competitions.

And then when you get out of those years you have more options but you have to work so hard to get there, mentally, emotionally and actually. They close women’s colleges like Douglass College, my Alma mater, so women have less access to higher education. But you get in and the pull to the party is so great… I know a lot of women who got stuck there. The strong come back from it but it’s a challenge.

And then you start working and “you’re such a good secretary” or you’re the good time girl or you’re not taken seriously. Or you are taken seriously and you’re good at your job, good work! You are almost definitely working overtime and kicking ass and taking names… and getting paid half of the salary of that of a man in your position, of the same skill-set and education.

And all that is if you are a wealthy American woman with a supportive family and opportunities, lets not even start to talk about poverty, racial adversity, and third world women. The choices become less, fewer, farther between. Your choice becomes between your body, your soul, food and shelter.

Let me be clear, I love being a woman. And every woman’s journey is different. But it’s hard, the adversity is great for 51% of the population.

I want to end with a conversation I once had with one of my brilliant feminist brothers:

Brother: “Girls are fucking crazy”

Me: “Maybe, but do you know why?”

Brother: “Patriarchy.”

Now that’s a real man.