Syd!

when I was a freshman in high school, I was dating a guy, a senior. He was the golden boy, football player, got along with everyone, had the best smile, everything. I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world that he wanted to date me. And then he started constantly pressuring me to have sex with him and do all sorts of things I wasn’t comfortable with at age 15. He dumped me for being a tease and for leading him on and for not sleeping with him.

when I was 16, I worked at a pizza place and the guys that worked in the back were very shamelessly forward with the hostesses and waitresses. They made sexual remarks and jokes about what they like to do to us if they had the chance. I remember one of the guys always tried to grab my butt, and other girls’ too, and I thought it was normal, that I had to just let him. That it was just a joke.

and now, I am 26. I get whistled at and honked at and stared at by men that make me very uncomfortable. I am reminded, jokingly of course, that my place is in the kitchen, and then in the same breath, get looked down on for being “just a mom”. I don’t run alone at night, and get nervous when I hike alone with my son during the day. And to think that I used to think that all of this was normal. The feeling uncomfortable, the being nervous, the forced laughter to get through a tricky situation. I have spent years of my life thinking that this is normal behavior, for a woman to constantly feel like she’s not enough and yet, at the same time, make herself smaller in order to live with the bullshit of sexism.

this is just the very tip of the iceberg; I know many women with far worse stories than me. It is not right.

but now, I am raising a boy. he is the sweetest boy, full of life and joy and adventure! he is going to grow up, of course, as babies often do, and I am going to teach him many many things. one of them is that we treat everyone with respect, every single human, regardless of gender or race or sexual orientation or anything else we classify people as. I will teach him that women are just as important as men, and that it’s not right to put someone else down for the sake of a joke. I will teach him that the world is not revolving around him, or any other one person out there. I will teach him that we celebrate and honor the wide variety of differences in our society. I will teach him that there is beauty in struggle, and that he can be both strong and kind. I will teach him that stereotypes suck and hinder our society far more than they help, and that he can do literally anything he wants, no matter if it is masculine or girly or anything in between. I will teach him that humans are so fragile, and that everyone needs love, and craves acceptance and closeness. I will teach him to protect and help and stand up for those that need it.

an artist draws a piece about how women alone don’t have to be sad that they’re alone, they should relish in it, which i thank him for giving me permission to do. the result of his work is half-nude ladies draped like linens over their couches, flashes of thigh gaps and open lips, breasts swelling pleasantly, a yawn and a stretch that shows off her hipbones. 

the only evidence i have that i’m normal is considered comedy. our reality is comedy. lying in bed under three covers, bra off but sweater on, laptop positioned directly under lack of a chin: that gets a laugh. in the movies, the quirky girl in a cute-ugly but somehow flattering pajama set gets caught at the supermarket and it’s a nice romantic scene where we find out how awkward it is for her to exist without makeup, without her best effort to please sexually. she sees her boss or her cute friend or whatever else makes us laugh and cringe and the next time we put on “real clothes” before we go out shopping.

the real world exists somewhere outside the picture of women. we come home and strip off our bras, but instead of that being a still image of a delicate female stepping away nude, it’s a moment of our peacefulness. the narrative so often stops here, us heading our improbably slim legs to the bedroom. but instead our breasts don’t always hang evenly, instead some of us do not have breasts, instead we swipe a hand over our tired faces and smear our makeup but are too lazy to take it off. our bodies crack and crunch and do not stretch like a cat but instead in weird directions, we rush out our breath and slouch and barely keep our eyes open. we lie with our thighs touching and our stomachs hanging because it’s comfortable. we sling ourselves undainty over whatever will support our weight. our showers consist equally of staring into the void as of unflattering angles while we wash; our bodies never come pre-shaved and for some reason our underarm hair is really persistent or our leg hair is dark and shows even after shaving or maybe both. our sleepovers mostly feature netflix and wine, getting food on our faces, eating until our stomachs make round pleased hills, talking trash and swearing up storms more than we paint our nails. we don’t go to the store in cute-ugly clothes, we go because we forgot to buy tampons or we dropped all our rice on the ground or because we’re human and we need supplies to survive. 

there is a very strange body-positive rule where somehow, we always end up under the slogan “beautiful.” our loneliness, our adulthood, our moments where were are not even being judged - i should remind you that those are beautiful too. but the truth is that you don’t need to be beautiful. and these moments in particular, that belong to you: they’re yours, they don’t need to be told that they exist in some plane of desirability. who cares if they’re ugly, if they’re truly self-serving and unflattering and indelicate. when you are home, you are finally human, returned to skin that itches in awkward places and ugly habits and it’s okay. they won’t show you a version of that without laughing about it, but we are real, we don’t keep ourselves perfect in even our peaceful moments. it’s okay. i know you might be worried what happens if you get a partner or roommate and they learn you live this way, that you’re messy and forget to brush your teeth sometimes and get food all over the place when you eat and i’m telling you: you’re not unusual. you’re just human, and these moments aren’t somehow shameful. they’re not untouchable and unspeakable because they’re not pretty. because instead they’re human.