They’ve repeatedly done studies that show that teenagers bodies are on a different internal clock that puts them to sleep later, and wakes them up later. And yet every single article about starting school later, there’s countless comments about how soft and weak people are now. Waking up early is not a moral issue. I…

I work in a building that has virtually no common space - it’s almost all individual offices and a couple of conference rooms. Our air runs continuously no matter what and is connected somehow to another building (I work at a university where many of our buildings are “historic” which basically means old). The…

Guys could also wear fabrics like linen that are more appropriate for the summer and take their jackets off. They could also use fans.

specifically a 4—year-old, 154 lb. man

This bear was THOUGHTFUL. He didn't eat the strawberry rhubarb because that would be RUDE. Everyone knows strawberry rhubarb is the best pie.

Yeah, we don’t talk. That isn’t even the worst thing he had ever said to me as a kid, not even close. I do owe him one for catalyzing my feminist conversion though.

When your brother gets cirrhosis, leave him up to his own devices.

My brother and sister are 20 years my senior (parents are in their mid sixties) which made for an interesting dynamic “blossoming” around my brothers then 30 year old friends.

I have to know, was your turtle okay? I hate that neighbor guy, in your honor.

I was 10. It was Halloween. My mom finally gave in and bought me the $40 pretty witch costume I had begged for the past 3 years. I was so excited! And then my neighbor’s son, who was in his mid-20s, visibly appraised my body and commented that I had “really grown up.” He started coming to the yard that next spring to…

I kept my hair bleached platinum blonde for years, and at least in the US, I got an unbelievable amount of attention. A little too much for me, to be honest. In Finland they didn’t give a fuck about my blondeness, haha, but when I came back after going natural (very dark auburn) it was like being blonde in the States.…

7th grade. I have ass. Always have. My parents were keenly aware of this and made me aware of it as well. While my little sister, who is not built like me, could wear biker shorts and certain skirts, I could not. My parents weren’t trying to be mean either. They knew. Anyway, I used to wear a long coat ALL THE TIME to…

Shit, I went blond 5 or 6 years ago, and the male attention I get is absolutely unlike anything I ever got with my natural brown hair.

I can’t really remember the first time this happened to me (I was a late bloomer) but the I was 16 summer I got my braces off and dyed my hair blonde, and suddenly there were male eyes on me from every direction. Did I mention that I had recently grown d cups? That factored into it. I had always been the weird kid, a…

I was one of the first girls to get breasts in school, so basically I was miserable for an 8 month period. SO MUCH BULLSHIT from guys that were like, 12 and trying to tell people that I’d had sex with them.

If you’re a boy writer, it’s a simple rule: you’ve gotta get used to the fact that you suck at writing women and that the worst women writer can write a better man than the best male writer can write a good woman. And it’s just the minimum. Because the thing about the sort of heteronormative masculine privilege,…

St. Jude’s Bike-a-thon. I was about 12 or 13, skinny as a rail (I was a late bloomer). I was BOOKING IT, back and forth on this road that they used to count as our “laps” that we were sponsored for. By booking it, I mean, out of my bike seat and just pedaling standing up. A man working one of the lap stations at the…

My first job was to bag groceries, which also entailed running up and down the aisles whenever a customer forgot something or didn’t agree with the price that rang up (I had to go verify the shelf price). Anyway, one day I was running down the salad dressing aisle to check a price and this man, who was 65 if he was a…

Junot Diaz talks a lot about how male privilege fucks both women & men up. He’s basically like “I grew up where it was manly to treat women like shit, and I’m exploring that, how to create landscapes of male privilege for people to read & understand, and that’s my contribution to feminism”

There is nothing worse than the guy who desperately stares at you in an effort to make eye contact, and if you look back at him, immediately assumes "she looked at me! That means a one way ticket to pound town, whoohoo!" Eye contact doesn't count as flirting if she can't avoid your gaze, dudes!