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Internalized Misogyny and Me

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When I was much younger, I mistook glorifying my more masculine traits for feminism. It started as young as five or six when I asked Santa for a tool box “with real tools” for Christmas. The 1980s era department store Santa was taken aback and asked if I was sure I didn’t want a doll. I thought for a moment and said “maybe a Mr. Mouth game and some books, too...but don’t forget my toolbox!” The Santa laughed, called me an unusual girl and posed for the picture. The story didn’t end there. Me Busy Internalizing Sexism On Christmas Day, when I ecstatically opened up my toolbox, both my parents seemed excited about my unusual choice and my father bragged to his brothers at dinner about how he didn’t need a son to work on projects because he had a handy daughter – me. On one hand, this was all very life affirming for me and rather progressive for my father. He was an early proponent for women in the workforce. My choices were being embraced and my interests en
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Why Do All Online Articles Start with a Question and Bulleted List?

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Online articles start with a question and bulleted list because: ·       Search engine optimization is usurping creative thought. ·       Money is more important than content. ·       The internet is no longer a place of information but exists now solely for capitalistic gain. ·       Lists are easy to read and so the rest of the article can be total crap and no one will notice. ·       Google started putting lists at the top of search results and as you’ll read below...Google is God. We must appease and conform. Now I give you a little song and dance about how important some products are in my life. Will I be selling you overpriced sheets or an “on point” coffee table made out of particle board that you don’t need? I don’t buy any of this crap myself. I prefer to thrift shop or go to garage sales because it’s more fun, and let's face it...I have a liberal arts degree. My furniture never matched. Read the following subheadings to learn more! How Do You Make M
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Birth Control and Beyond... Teaching girls about different uses for hormone birth control.

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I was sixteen the first time my mother mentioned menstruation to me. She was concerned because she had assumed I hadn’t had a period yet. My first period came just shy of my thirteenth birthday and I had taken money from the household change jar to buy supplies at the local 7-Eleven. She was sad that I hadn’t come to her, but I wasn’t capable of starting that conversation as a twelve-year-old. Two Girls Swinging over a Lake Needless to say, if my mother waited until sixteen to even say the word menstruation, the word “sex” was entirely taboo. Even when I announced to both my parents, brazenly, that I believed in abortion, they remained silent on the methods to avoid the surgical intervention of gestation. My parents were not alone. Many of my friends were woefully lacking in information about sex and birth control and it was up to the school system to make up for our ignorance.   But things have changed, right? Sexual education has not changed as dramatic
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