Dear Diary,

These days I find myself growing more and more nostalgic for childhood. I miss being carefree, and generally unconcerned with adult business like finances, working, filing taxes and reality TV. I miss being a total hot-mess in middle school, wearing cargo pants that un-zip into shorts, covering my hair in glitter and butterfly clips and not giving a damn what anyone thought about it. I miss when cooties were the worst thing you could catch from someone of the opposite sex, and thinking that the President was a nice man in a nice house with his nice wife creating nice rules so people could cohabit in peace. Puppies for everyone! I miss the days when I didn’t have to worry about what I wore or said, the days when I had no curves and no knowledge of what it really meant to be a woman in America.

I’ve never been as hurt or as angry about the objectification of women in this country as I am currently. On a daily basis I am absolutely overwhelmed by the misogynistic, oppressive, unjust system that I live under. Not just the system created by the government, but the one that is manifested in the media, on the streets and in the minds of my fellow human beings. I want to wear short-shorts on my walk to work because it’s a thousand degrees out and I have that right. I’m not wearing them for your affection, offensive “compliments” and blood-thirsty stares. COME ON! I should be able to wear whatever I want on the street, at the gym, at Starbucks and on the most tightly packed train during rush hour without fear of the “consequences” of my fashion choices. I think it’s disgusting that women are warned that looking and feeling sexy and confident can “send the wrong message across.” Instead we (men and women alike) should be teaching men how to be respectful and responsible for their actions! Letting Brock Turner out jail after 3 months means that privilege and good behavior are more important than the justice and protection of a young woman.

Men are not the only ones to blame. Women enjoy their fair share of degrading and objectifying other women. When the summer Olympics took over our lives for a short stint of time, the shameful comments pouring out on social media were so shocking to me. The tweets on hairstyles, weight, “masculine muscle tone” and make-up, were completely undermining the legitimacy and talents of some absolutely bad @$$ female athletes. These powerful and inspirational women that we should admire and celebrate! If you’re concerned with the basic and superficial labels that confine women to ridiculous standards, then watch a beauty pageant and stay off twitter. PLEASE! Don’t go out of your way to spew hatred about your own kind. How can we possibly move away from our repressive and patriarchal system, if we constantly feed right into it?! Like, what does your life have anything to do with Alicia Keys not wearing make-up? Calm down, get a life.

I’m continually appalled at the lack of progress for the feminist agenda pretty much across the board. I think it’s downright baffling that the matter of our reproductive rights is still up for debate. The fact that ANY person, ESPECIALLY a man, can have a say in what I do with my body is just ridiculous! This circus show of an election continues, and news coverage focus remains on the things Donald Trump shouldn’t have said, but said anyway, and the e-mails Hillary shouldn’t have written. Like, remember when Trump said that if he were to become President, he believed that women should be punished for having an abortion? No, you forgot. You were criticizing Gabby Douglas’ hair clips.

Things need to start changing around here immediately. I’ll stop criticizing Hillary for having hair that remains rigid in place, and start hoping that a woman in charge is going to make a big difference for her fellow countrywomen. And for the love of Mary, stop the cat calling, bruh. It’s NEVER going to work.

xoxo,

Mad Swan