I get looks a lot. That shouldn’t really strike me as surprising; everyone gets looks. Amused looks, horrified looks, heartbroken looks, enamored looks…I’ve gotten them all. Still, nothing was quite the punch in the gut as the look my mother gave me when I told her I was going out with a girl.

I’d been dating Megan for something like six months around the time I finally talked to my mom. For six months, I was horrified at the concept of telling my middle-aged, old-fashioned African-American mother that her daughter, the girl she had been a father and mother to for twenty years, was very much in love with your typical Irish girl (sans fiery-red Weasley hair).

I had told my mother that I was bi before, but it was some six years ago and I’m pretty sure that she just passed it off as me being dazed after being hit over the head with puberty. I was almost certain that she’d forgotten (she hadn’t, the old elephant), and when I told her, a look of terror and disgust would follow suit.

It didn’t, and I still can’t decide if I’m grateful for that or not. Read More »

I must have been out of town when this memo was passed around, so perhaps someone can clue me in. When did “feminist” become a four letter word?

I noticed this first earlier this summer, while reading “The Feminine Mystique” by Betty Friedan. My book began to cower in fear any time I attempted to take it out of my purse to do some reading public. While people can openly read Harry Potter books and trashy romance novels, my book was met with hostility.

“Why are you reading that trash?” my cousin scowled.

“What are you, becoming some kind of feminist?” a friend of mine asked, while I did some pool-side reading.

I thought to myself, if I had been reading a book about civil rights and the end of slavery, I wouldn’t get a second glance. But a book about feminism, one that applies to over half of our population, apparently offends people. Read More »