In 1993, Lisa Simpson assessed the female role models of her time, and came up with a grim prognosis.

“Millions of girls will grow up thinking that this is the right way to act,” she said, “that they can never be more than vacuous ninnies whose only goal is to look pretty, land a rich husband, and spend all day on the phone with their equally vacuous friends talking about how damn terrific it is to look pretty and have a rich husband.”

In 1998, “Sex & the City” aired for the first time, and Lisa Simpson’s fears came to life.

“Sex & the City” was (does anyone not know this?) a TV series that followed the lives of four women as they navigated the perilously sexful world of life in New York City. These women were meant to stand in for their entire gender, in spite of the fact that they were uniformly white, straight, and rich enough that they could have afforded to feed third-world villages with the money that they spent on shoes. They spent their (apparently endless) free time engaging in all life’s most vital pursuits: boys, gossip, clothes, and parties.

In spite of its patently unrealistic set-up, its exaggerated characters and neatly ridiculous plotting, many viewers were convinced that “Sex & the City” was a masterpiece of realism. People moved to New York because of the show. If they lived here, they tried to live like its characters; if they didn’t live here, they imagined our lives on its terms. These people, mostly women, who Gawker aptly christened Scary Sadshaws, elevated “Sex & the City” out of its proper place in the universe - light entertainment, with sex and terrifying costumes - and treated it as a lifestyle guide. Read More »

So, maybe this is old news–but all news worth hearing should be renewed news. And though this may have been a huge topic of conversation for women over chocolate martinis, Sex and The City episodes, kleenex and post break-up mending, something tells me that (crying over what might have been), will never be old news.

Naturally, when you listen to a friend (and we’ve all be “the friend” before too) gripe over a man who is completely undeserving of her time, you want to say, “MOVE ON! YOU CAN DO BETTER!!!” and if you’re a good friend, you do say that.

Usually, she won’t listen and sometimes the truth of the situation is : He’s Just Not That Into You. Period. Thank God for the authors, Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, who wrote this little gem.

I don’t know about you, but I always feel like a crazy, bitchy friend if I say those words, even if it’s true. Not because the words are harsh, but because 90% of the time when you have to tell somebody whoever they’re chasing, or dating, isn’t as “devoted” or hell, “interested” even, they usually already know deep down.

No one likes to acknowledge that they’re “unwanted“, because it makes them evaluate something about themselves; then goes the endless wheel of, “why isn’t he interested? Why did he say he’d call? Does he think I’m ugly? Does the new girl have a better body?? Did I have a piece of spinach in my teeth the first time we kissed?? WHAT HAPPENED??” WHY DOESN’T HE WANT ME??” Read More »

Things Girls Do For a Date:

1) Try on everything in our closets, which might I add, usually results in sweating like we just ran a marathon, all while ranting to ourselves about how we have NO clothes (minus the messy heap that was once our closet).

God forbid we should be too overdressed, too trendy, too slutty, or look too high-maintenance. Yet, we still need that perfect ‘fit that makes us look adorable… so that he will like us.

2) Email our friends 15 times on Date Day. “Can I wear a dress?” “What do I talk about?” “What’s our code word if it goes bad and I need an excuse to leave?” “What about the awkward silences?” “What if I’m not funny?” and our friends write us back and assure us that we are fabu and he will obviously like us.

3) Then the date rolls around and we sit up straight, eat fatty food so we aren’t one of those “Ano girls who don’t eat”, smile so much that our cheeks hurt (I really wonder how Ms. America does it) and bring our A game to the table.

Why? So he will like us. Like us and want to call/email us. And we will inevitably spend our next few days staring at our gmail inboxes and cell phones. Never thinking we would be so bummed out over an email telling us of a MAJOR sale.

While that is all peachy (usually nothing excites us more than knowing MJ aviators are ½ off) right now this is soo not the new email we were hoping for. Read More »

College is undoubtedly the era of ambiguous relationships, blurred boundaries, commitment phobia, and cheating cheating cheating.

I met this guy out one night during my freshman year and we really hit it off. Red cups in hand, making some great intoxicated conversation when he suddenly declared, “You’re definitely a breakfast girl.”

Unsure what this meant, I curiously questioned the meaning of his statement the next day over lunch with my best guy friend. He laughed as he explained that a breakfast girl is a girl you’d hook up with and actually want to grab breakfast with the next morning.

To be dubbed a breakfast girl was apparently, some sort of slutty man’s compliment.

I got to thinking, how would I know to whom I was a breakfast girl, and to whom I’d simply be that nameless ‘score’ last Friday? Clearly, this is a troubling question for college girls everywhere. How many times have you heard your girls (or even yourself) make excuses in order to justify or rationalize bad relationships. Read More »