On girls, high school, and lobsters.

I spent most of my high school years trying to be part of the boys club. On my first day of high school, I wore a Jetsons t-shirt, baggy jeans, my Dad's tie, and Chuck Taylors. I was not like the other girls. I was an exception. I was into punk music, but the other girls who liked punk were posers. They only liked it to impress boys. I could ride a skateboard. I could play bass guitar. I was funny (debatable). All of these things made me different from the other girls. (Slowly I gained a few girl friends and I have always had my bff from childhood, but I viewed them as fellow exceptions. )


(my brother and me)

I got a strange sort of pleasure out of eating disgusting cafeteria calzones and waxing nerdy about Adult Swim cartoons alongside the boys. Understandable, as they were and still are super smart, weird funny dudes (I married one of my high school dude friends and remain friends with a few more). But what I really craved was a way to rebel against the girl-y norm. I was part of the boys club, or so I thought.

When you hang out with hormonal teenage boys on the daily, eventually the conversation can turn sexist and it's hard to call out the very people you rely on to lend a sense of legitimacy to your decidedly unfeminine nonchalance. "That girl is too skinny, that's freakin' gross" or "That girl is way too fat to be wearing that skirt" eventually started popping up in conversation. Something about those comments didn't sit right with me, but I kept my mouth shut because I thought as long as I'm sitting at their table, they're not saying those things about me. What I failed to realize was that I'd never actually be part of the boy's club, I was not an exception, and girls are pretty awesome. "I don't get along with girls as well as I do with boys." "Girls are catty." "I have nothing in common with other girls." All of these phrases were thrown around by my high school self because of internalized misogyny.

"But if you are the exception that proves the rule, and the rule is that women are inferior, you haven’t made any progress."
-Ariel Levy

Allow me to reference a song by one of my favorite bands in the 9th grade. Lobster Bucket by the Aquabats talks about how when lobsters are captured and being held in a bucket, they prevent each other from escaping rather that teaming up and tipping the bucket over or something (I don't remember all the words, it was a long time ago). It was a song full of sage wisdom and fake Cajun accents. Women can be like those lobsters, in that we are oppressed by a patriarchy that polices our morals, belittles us, and pits us against each other. Yet instead of standing together to fight it, we police each other, belittle each other, and unwittingly buy into that sense of rivalry that is foisted upon us. In that sense, female friendships are a subversive political act. Women are expected to be jealous of each other, but when we look around and recognize how smart and cool our fellow females are, amazing things can happen.



As I'm growing more mature and figuring out my life, I'm appreciating friendship with other women more and more. Women are badass. They are editors in chief of their college newspaper. They can beat all the boys at paintball. They collect records. They read comic books. They make delicious cheesecake. They win Pulitzer prizes. They geek out. They have interests and talents and are generally awesome to be around because they are exceptional humans; not in spite of their femaleness, but in conjunction with it.

If I could communicate with my high school self I would tell her this:
Girls are cool. You are a girl and you are cool. There are other girls who are also cool. Next time you feel resentment towards another girl, get to know her first. You may learn that she plays guitar or something. Start an all girl band. Be good to each other.