I believe women should be more difficult. Not difficult in the sense of being aggressive or combative or exhausting to be around. I mean having standards that do not bend, opinions that do not dissolve under mild pressure and needs that do not get sacrificed for the sake of keeping the peace for people who were never going to appreciate the gesture anyway. I do not believe in submission as a default. I do not believe in being relentlessly pleasant at the expense of my own wants and needs. I do not believe in swallowing discomfort just to maintain a harmony that is fundamentally false because it is built entirely on my willingness to pretend everything is fine when it isn’t.

None of this means I start arguments for sport. It does not mean I am aggressive or unpleasant to be around or that I manufacture conflict out of boredom. I am not afraid of confrontation when confrontation is warranted. I say the thing directly instead of sending signals and waiting to see if anyone picks them up. It means if something bothers me I tell the person it bothers me, I say it and It means if I want something to change I say what I want changed and I say it once and I mean it.