Inevitable Feminist Rant

This might not be what you expect.

The Two-Pronged Attack

My perspective on gender equality is similar to my perspective on equality for any marginalized people. The world does not treat you as it ought. The world thinks less of you than your whiter, straighter, wealthier, more phallus-riddled counterparts. The world needs to change. Yes: protest, litigate, write. Yell and scream at the world. Get in its face. But consider a two-pronged attack. The second prong is YOU.

I believe that the most effective thing that women can do to further the feminist cause is to be An Epic Human Female. If everywhere young people look they see women doing monumental things, they are less likely to grow up assuming that their doctor or mechanic or boss is going to be male. The next generation of women will have more opportunities, and the courage to take advantage of them. The world will be a better place.

If you join the ranks of Epic Human Females, there are no days off. Every day, you must be the best accountant, engineer, teacher, mother, manager, or business owner that you can be. It is exhausting work.

If you are inclined, eschew the status quo. Have you always wanted to coach football? Join the Navy SEALS? Start a construction company? Become a firefighter? Make it happen. You will have to fight hard for it. You may have to get a lawyer. You might make some enemies. However, the next woman will have it a little easier. And the next and the next.

Choose the college major that you actually want, even if you know for a fact that you will be the only woman in all of your classes.

Here is the hard part, though. You don’t get your Feminist Pioneer Patch by simply signing up. You have to kick wholesale ass. This means working harder than you have ever worked before. Like all other marginalized groups, you have to exceed expectations before people will acknowledge that you have met them.

Self-Reliance

While it might be easy and fun to play the “I’m cute; do this for me” game (okay, really easy and really fun,) you are not doing the women of future generations any favors.

Carry your own heavy shit.

Open your own pickle jars.

Hook up your own Blu-ray player.

Figure out how to work a cordless drill.

Smush (or relocate) your own spidies.

Hold the door open for a guy once, just to see what happens. (They freak out.)

Consider familiarizing yourself with the basics of your automobile. Then your mechanic (of whichever gender) might be less likely to say, “See, your gastric serpentine turbine needs a new photon oscillator plug,” and then charge you $800 for something that doesn’t exist. Just cause you’re a chick.

Hey, you don’t have to do any of this. But if you are at all disgruntled by how women are treated, give it a thinky-thinky.

Also

Please stop using the word “pussy” as a synonym for something weak. It doesn’t even make sense. As my idiotic male friends in college repeatedly demonstrated, a mere well-aimed finger flick can fell The Mighty Dick & Balls. (But who doesn’t enjoy a bracing round of Bag Tag?) Meanwhile women shove entire small people out of their…pussies. No one that I know has ever gotten anything more interesting than a kidney stone to come out of his wiener.

I know I said I wouldn't judge you but

If I overhear you at the bar telling your friends that you have to wait until your boyfriend gets home so he can put your framed picture of your kitty on the wall, or put together your bloody Ikea bookshelf for you, I swear by my own ovaries that I will purchase the most caustic drink the bar has to offer, fill it with toothpicks, and then pretend to trip and pour it on your face.

Get out there and be amazing, ladies. I love you all.