This West Virgina Girl

It is so well known that women are better and safer drivers than men that OUR CAR INSURANCE RATES ARE LOWER. Women get into fewer accidents, get fewer DUIs, and receive fewer speeding tickets than men.

“women never shut up”

Several scientific studies have shown that not only do men talk more than women, they also think that women have been talking for much longer than they actually have. Men interrupt and talk over women, dominate conversations, and still think women talk too much.

“women are shallow”

Lol next

“my wife is my ball and chain lmao”

Multiple studies have shown that marriage between men and women: Increases male lifespan, decreases female lifespan Decreases male depression rates, increases female depression rates Decreases male stress levels, increases female stress levels Increases male health and happiness, decreases female health and happiness Increases a man’s chance of getting a raise or promotion, decreases a woman’s chances of getting a raise or promotion

“women are too emotional”

Men love to say this about women after hurting them, in order to shift the blame and dismiss their feelings in one go. In reality, women are taught to hold our tongues and control ourselves quite literally from birth. We’re taught to put men’s needs and wants ahead of our own emotions regardless of the personal cost. Men are taught to do more or less whatever the fuck they want to women. Men take their emotions out on women while women are expected to shove theirs down.

“women talk to much” (PBS, resources included)

“women are shallow” (just read the book, Dataclysm. by okcupid founder (?) that includes data about sex, gender, race, in finding online romantic partners)

“ball and chain” (University of London)

The Prince: Lumiere, Cogsworth, Mrs. Potts -

Enchantress:

when he tells you his favorite drink is an old fashioned,

smile politely.

allow him to think that he is suave, interesting,

the millennial Don Draper.

do not say oh that’s what my grandma orders.

when he asks you your poison, be a little less specific.

try to be sexy, vaguely mysterious.

say anything with gin.

three years later, the summer that he leaves you,

and you’re downing an entire fucking bathtub of anything with gin,

recall this answer.

then, recall that one British study that said gin drinkers tend to be psychopaths,

and think that here you are,

angrily inhaling yet another tumbler of juniper berries and ice and snowmen’s tears,

and somewhere, probably in the same bar that he used to take you

(with a prettier, younger amalgam of all the things he wanted to you to be)

Don Draper is sipping languidly on a glass of fucking fruit.

but no, you’re the psychopath.

note the irony. just, keep it to yourself.

fuck it, decide that you are now a New Woman.

do the things you think New Women are supposed to do.

for starters, reinvent your wardrobe.

invest in cap sleeves and plunging necklines.

remember – cleavage is always interesting,

even when you aren’t.

decide that from now on,

you are only going to fuck artists,

because they are so deeply attuned

to the connection between physicality and emotion.

then decide that you’ll only fuck people who do a lot of acid,

because i mean, technically so are they

and then only men in their forties,

because at least they know how female bodies work by now,

and then probably, now, you’re just going to fuck girls.

pride yourself on the fact

that you have never once lit your own cigarette.

when the strapping young soldier leaves the bed you are sharing,

and strides to the bathroom,

contemplate taking a picture of his back with your phone.

don’t do it.

but think how good it can feel be the one objectifying,

for once.

buy fancy lingerie just because.

whatever you do,

do not collapse in a puddle of tears in the dressing room.

put on the façade that you are emotionless,

uncaring. a Bad Bitch.

feelings, what are those?

don’t let anybody (except maybe your girlfriends,

after a few hundred glasses of Cab Sav),

know this is merely a brittle exoskeleton.

instead, contort yourself, like a desperate mime,

into whatever it is he needs.

a sex kitten with a shoulder for his fragile ego to weep on,

a blank canvas for him to splatter his complexes all over,

a peepshow without a peephole,

that bodiless, breathy voice on the end of the phone line

tell me what you like baby, whatever you need i’m your girl

the whole time, feel everything.

allow yourself to break,

but only in private.

tonight, you are visiting Hipster Dreamboat’s apartment for the second time

and together you will watch Memento,

because of course you will.

grasp his callused right hand in your left

and watch Guy Pearce desperately collect Polaroids and tattoos,

while Hipster Dreamboat kisses along your young, stupid neck.

watch him grapple with his memory,

think to yourself about how much of memory is constructed

of mere convictions,

wishes,

desires,

and how much of it is real.

three years later, the summer that he leaves you,

and it’s nighttime again and the memories come to you,

ephemeral, fleeting.

recall his fiery touch, his vanilla tongue

how he looked in that suit

and how he trembled as you tried to unbutton it

now, grasp your own hand instead.

recall everything else.

recall that night, where he left you at the Park ‘n’ Ride, drunk and drifting.

recall that party, where you met her.

recall his nimble mastery of your desperate loneliness.

take a Polaroid of this,

tattoo it on the back of your hand, anywhere the light hits,

remember remember remember

and never look back.

resign yourself to being the perpetual single one of all your girlfriends.

routinely make forever-alone jokes,

talk about marrying your dog.

and when one of these girlfriends comes to you weeping,

comb her hair and spout one of your wittiest one-liners:

running after a man is like running after the bus –

another will come along in just a moment.

but remind yourself,

sometimes,

you don’t want to wait for another fucking bus.

sometimes you just want to hop on the cleanest, safest-looking one,

and escape, get the fuck out, leave everything behind –

the dead-end job,

the town full of stuck people,

the father who terrifies you,

the mother you can’t save.

but keep recalling that truth, the one that deep down you’ve always known,

that you are your own way out.

fly down the steps of your own fire escape.

recall that night, dusk and summer,

the one where on mere whim you stood up on the seat of your girlfriend’s car,

and leapt half yourself out of her sun roof,

and leaned back.

let the wind run itself through your tangled hair

let the night overtake you.

you are flying, you are free,

you are leaving this place like the way they left you.

yes, of course you are undateable.

and for now, you are alone

only because you have far, far too much to give

Vaginal Thrush

Menorrhagia

Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

Fibroids

Add in fibromylgia, which affects 8x as many women as men, as well as lupus (and almost any other autoimmune condition), systemic exertion intolerance disorder (SEID), iron deficiency anæmia (all of which affect more women than men), and you have well over 25% of childbearing-age women globally living with chronic pain and tiredness.

Chronic pain is overwhelmingly experienced by women, and women are less likely to be taken seriously or given treatment by medical professionals. I went through two years of diagnostics to finally find out I had occipital neuralgia; I felt doubted when I described my pain at every step of the way, but was lucky to have a partner who was persistent in helping me get treatment.

This is why if you get pregnant your doctor will take you off basically any and all medication you’re taking (including mental health medication, can’t imagine any implications/dire consequences there), not because they know it will have an adverse affect on the foetus but because they have no idea. How wonderfully kind of them to prioritise the health and life of an unborn foetus over that of a living person, let’s just hope they don’t become ill whilst pregnant. How charmingly logical it is that they wouldn’t even bother to test drugs in people with a uterus because it’s all too difficult and gosh, darn what an ethical conundrum we’ve been faced with, let’s just not! Which is so in the spirit of capital S, Science!  

Take menstrual cramps, for example. Everybody knows that cramps are a normal part of menstruation, and that virtually all people who menstruate experience them throughout their lives, right?

Except that’s not right at all.

Yes, it’s true that about two-thirds of individuals who menstruate begin to experience menstrual pain during adolescence, but it’s basically a side effect of puberty, and normally subsides by your late teens. Only about 20-40% of menstruating adults experience menstrual pain on a regular basis - and according to some estimates, as much as 80% of that figure is due to undiagnosed endometriosis or some other underlying medical condition.

Yeah, roll those numbers around in your head: if you’re an adult who experiences menstrual cramps, it’s overwhelmingly likely that your pain is a symptom of some potentially serious medical condition.

Don’t watch it. Do not watch this fucked up mess of a show. Listen, I’ve been working in suicide prevention for almost six years, and I grew up in an area that had epidemics of teen suicides. The area is actually so well known that the show-writers and producers met with leading experts in the area on the ways that the media contributes to youth suicides - and then did almost everything they were warned not to do, even going so far as to actually show the suicide on-screen. Many of the experts that they’ve spoken with are expressing grave disappointment with how the show proceeded despite their advice.