| April 11, 1998 "I've been a bad, bad girl . . . "
I like bad girls. I really, really do. And it's
so strange to me, because I've always been a little afraid of them, but now that I'm
almost 30, I'm getting to really like them. A lot.
When I say bad girls, I mean women with a certain kick-ass
attitude, a kind of confidence about who they are and what they think, and a sense of
independence that doesn't preclude good, close relationships with other people. I
like women who know what they want, and aren't afraid of it, whatever it is.
When I was younger, girls like this always scared me a
little. I think it's because in some ways I was raised to be a "good
girl," to value my reputation more than what was inside my head, to worry about what
other people thought of me rather than what I thought of myself. To be a nurturer, a
supportive, indecisive girl.
Really, though, I think inside I wished I could be like
them. I wanted to have opinions and not be afraid to say what they were. I thought
I had opinions, but they were hidden so deep down that it was hard to even identify them
for myself, much less articulate them for anyone else. As I got older, I realized
that I could have an opinion and articulate it too, and I didn't have to put up with bad
situations. I wanted to be a bad girl, too.
Now I like a girl who can drink vodka straight out of a
bottle. A girl who paints her nails blue and doesn't give a damn what anybody
thinks. A girl who likes to drive a stick shift and play her music loud. A
girl who's brave enough to leave home and travel out to San Francisco or Las Vegas all
alone. A girl who'll admit that she wanks. A girl who can make things out of
metal, and I don't just mean jewelry. A girl who buys her own house and loves it
there. A girl who's willing to get arrested for sticking up for a cause she believes
in. A girl who gets a PhD because she really wants to. A girl who doesn't get
a PhD because she really doesn't want to. A girl who isn't afraid to write erotica
and post it on the web under her very own name.
I've got a lot of role models now. Being a bad girl is
a different thing for every woman, I think. The main thing, I believe, is not being
scared in the way that so many of us learned to be scared.
Actually, there are some very cool women on the web,
definite bad girls. I love it, you know, because the internet is supposed to be this
very male-dominated space. But they're out there, and they're making the world a
little better for women, I think. The disgruntled
housewife is definitely a bad girl, and her page is a delight. Mary Anne Mohanraj writes erotica on the net and
has now published a book of it that you can buy in an actual bookstore! And Maggy is one of those women with a great brain and a
great attitude, and god can she ever program html (by hand! she does it all by
hand!). Finally, the Four
Girls tell it like they see it . . . their page has become a little slick as they've
gotten more successful, but they're still great bad girls.
What do you think? Write me. |
