I tend to think the best of people. Overall, I think strangers are more friendly more often than they’re not, and if you give them a smile, you’ll get one back. I tend to think that with most store employees and the lot, if you’re friendly, they’ll be friendly and helpful in return. It was only recently that I learned I might just be horribly naive.

A male friend of mine was talking about how the mailroom guy on campus was so grouchy. “He gives you this glare and doesn’t say a word even when you say hi,” he said.

I was surprised. “I’ve seen him smile and say hi.”

My friend rolled his eyes. “Well of course. You’re a girl.”

I protested, but as I interacted with him again and again I realized that the mailroom guy was just nice to girls. And it was the same with the post office workers, the cafeteria workers, and a handful of other strangers I interact with on a regular basis. Before you think I’m padding my own ego and saying I’m smoking hot, let me assure you, it wasn’t just me. People are just more likely to treat a girl politely, to smile and be more helpful.

At first I thought, What luck! Girls can finally enjoy something about being a girl! But as the overactive-feminist part of my brain worked on this new idea, I liked it less and less. Read More »

Living in New York City is great. And I mean that. I’ve been here for the last six or seven years, and before that I lived in nearby Long Island (with frequent visits into Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island to visit my family, and sometimes Manhattan to take in a show or go to a museum).

The problem is not living in New York City. The problem is living in New York City AND being a girl.

For some reason, this is THE city of catcalls and bad pick-up lines. It doesn’t matter what you look like, who you are–if you have (or even might have) a hooha, you’re gonna be harassed.

So now, for your reading pleasure, I’d like to present you with a scene from last night in My Life As A Girl In NYC.

This is verbatim. I kid you not.

Enjoy.

(10pm Thursday night. After four hours of tech rehearsal at a local theater, SARA, 23, heads up to Union Square, where she sits down on the steps to wait for her BOYFRIEND, 26.

To Sara’s left sit two HIPSTERS. Sara casually witnesses a seemingly NEW JERSEY GUY in a douchey leather jacket ask them for a cigarette.

Sara goes back to waiting. But something is wrong. Sensing this, she turns around to find Jersey Guy and his two JERSEY FRIENDS staring at her. And Jersey Guy is pointing right at her. Sara quickly turns back around.

But it’s too late. Jersey Guy approaches, unlit cigarette in hand.)

JERSEY GUY: I just wanted to say thanks for looking all pretty. Read More »

I’ve always made a bad girl.

I don’t mean to say that I’m bad. I’m far too responsible for that. I listen to NPR. I vote in primaries. But when it comes to femininity, to the trappings of girlhood (the shoes, the makeup, the cooking, the arcane household crafts), I just do not get it. I am not good at it. I fail to perform “girl” correctly.

It’s not as if I haven’t been trained for the job. Throughout my childhood, several family members staged interventions and crash courses on femininity, from the grandmother who told me that I could be so pretty, if only I’d try a little, to the cousins who told me that ya cain’t use big words on a guy, or he won’t like ya. My father – a check-bouncing, hard-drinking, waitress-dating guy who rode motorcycles and used the word f*ck approximately eight times in any given conversation – despaired over my failure to become, in his words, “a real lady.”

I tried. I really did. Before I knew what feminism was, I studied gender, the assumptions and behaviors and roles that were assigned to the men and women around me. I didn’t have revolutionary aims. I just wanted to know what I was missing.

This is what I picked up:

Boys are strong. Girls are gentle. Boys are brave. Girls are patient. Boys want to have fun. Girls want to have babies. Boys are attractive because of what they do. Girls are attractive because of how they look. Boys smoke, drink, and screw. Girls cook, clean, and marry. Boys pick the girls they want. Girls take the boys who pick them. Boys can’t help themselves. Girls spend their time helping.

To borrow a phrase from my dear father: f*ck that sh*t. Read More »