That is a thing of beauty. I can never repay you, but I can try:

I hope you wax his nipples right the fuck off.

Thanks!

Thanks for sharing this!

I think a lot of them wouldn’t phrase it the same way you’re phrasing it. They’d say, “I have a great job because I worked hard for it and never acted like a victim. I love looking pretty and getting compliments and doing girly things. It’s ridiculous to think men and women are identical, and why should we be? We have…

Those are all really interesting points and I would never have thought to consider them. Thanks for adding some insider context to the conversation!

For sure. No teenager should be left to figure out something as complex as systemic racism on her own, but every adult knows that the more you try to hammer an idea into a teenage skull, the more teenage stubbornness pushes it right back out. I don’t even you trying to handle the situation because it sounds thorny as…

Be a voice of reason when women aren’t around. My sense is that often guys feel most comfortable making sexist statements when there are no women nearby to be offended, which means we can’t hear it and we can’t stop it. But you guys can.

I think anonymity and online safety are a two-way street. If you remove anonymity, you (1) make it easier for law enforcement to find & arrest online harassers, but (2) you also make it easier for online harassers to find & harass women.

That sounds terrible. On so many levels. I’m sorry you have to deal with all that.

I think agenttremble made a really good point. I think the white community often assumes that blackness lends a heightened consciousness to racial issues, but that isn’t necessarily the case. You have no way of knowing whether she’s “behind” her fellow biracial teens in racial awareness or whether this is something…

31 here. You’ll figure it out. My advice is to figure out what motivates you. Do you like rewards? Set reasonable goals and give yourself a small reward after achieving each one. Do you like seeing progress? Start with the easiest stuff first to build momentum. Do you have problems with procrastination? Make…

Thank you, this is exactly the kind of response I was hoping for — I had no sense of how common/weird these notes were. Thanks for adding your professional insight!

Absolutely. I just have no idea what the norm is. I’m on board with her calling him out, I just want the insider perspective on how out of bounds this is. Like, I could see a casting call saying, “Character is tough, sexy, and tomboyish; please dress appropriately,” or “casual wardrobe preferred” or “Character Elle…

I have never been in so much as a school play, but if I was auditioning for a role and someone sent me not just the scenes but the entire script, I would read that thing cover to cover. Seems like basic professionalism to me.

My answers, in reverse order:

I don’t know enough about acting as a profession to be properly grossed out by this. Is this a note for how female actors should dress while they’re reading the script at the audition? Do people normally give wardrobe notes to A-level actors? I want to be suitably enraged but I don’t understand what’s happening here.

Thanks for the reply! I’ve quit a major job once already to live abroad for a year and write and it was the best choice I ever made. Now I’m gearing up for round two, but I don’t want to keep hopping back into full-time 9-5 work whenever my savings run out; I want to leave that behind for good. I’ve been thinking that…

Actually, I run the place, I’m home by noon every day, and I have all the time in the world to work on my marginally successful fantasy series.

My preemptive response to all of these: