AN OPEN LETTER FROM A TEENAGE GIRL

What's your least favourite thing about being a teenage girl? Have a think, I mean there's a lot to go through. There's the super uncomfy 'bras', the god-awful period cramps and even the constant underlying worry that you'll be next, that you'll be 'the one'. The One out of the 1 in 4 women who are victims of sexual abuse every year. The One who "should've been more careful". The One who wakes up to find that a video of themselves unconcious, half nude and raped has gone viral on social media. According to various sitcoms and cheap magazines, the life of a sixteen year old girl goes along the lines of like pink filtered web surfing, texting, lightning speed boy-talk and like the frequent sentence filler. The media prepares us for an adolescence of absent minded bliss; something I have yet to encounter and something Jada, the sixteen year old from Texas who's rape pictures went viral, will never see.

TEEN QUEENS #1 - KIM GORDON

Ask any one of my friends to give you words that remind them of me and it's highly likely you'll get 'fringe' (i'm infamous for trimming it myself), 'the horrors' and 'sonic youth'. Sonic youth are just my fucking band, okay. They are the shit. So, I decided to combine my two favourite things (cool female role models and baggy nineties alternative rock) and write my first post about Kim Gordon. 

In case you're not familiar with the work of kim gordon/thurston moore/lee ranaldo/steve shelley, Sonic Youth were an experimental rock band from NYC that played together from 1981 to 2011. They practically led the experimental rock genre, creating twelve minute long songs filled with weird, dissonant guitar DIY and politically correct lyrics. Kim Gordon was the bass guitarist and vocalist (along with now ex-husband Moore) and was basically a fucking riot girl pioneer.

DEEP END: SOFTER SOFTEST

collage made by me, original photo credit to andy warhol

Virginity is a strange concept, mainly because at this point no one really knows what it means any more. That sounds like quite a vague description but ask anyone what they think virginity means and I can bet that not everyone will have the same idea of what exactly virginity is. It's a highly personal subject to be wholly honest which means it can be interpreted in various ways but that in turn can become quiet problematic.

You see the problem with virginity at the moment is that most people aren't getting that virginity is a concept. And the definition of concept is an abstract idea. This means that virginity can actually mean a whole range of things and doesn't even have to have one sole definition. But this isn't about defining virginity as such, it's more about what that concept of virginity has become, and it's actually become an oppressive social construct really. 

AIN'T I A WOMAN?

Illustrated by Tyler Feder

In 1851 Sojourner Truth gave the now famous 'Ain't I A Woman' speech, in which she questioned both the maltreatment of women and highlighted the significance of the maltreatment of black women within this. Truth raised the point that the definition of a 'woman' at the time somehow managed to overlook her because of her race; that she, unlike white women at the time, was not a recipient of courteous, gentlemanly treatment that women so rightly 'deserved' as the society she lived had decided that her dark skin made her less of a woman. Over 150 years later and the same issues still stand, women of all different races, genders, sexualities and even abilities are discriminated against accordingly and still ask, "Ain't I a woman?"

THE ART OF SAYING 'NO'

"College is the time when everyone experiences those things such as sex and fun and pleasure. But in those years I've had to rot in loneliness. It's not fair. You girls have never been attracted to me. I don't know why you girls aren't attracted to me. But I will punish you all for it,"

The last time I heard of University College of Santa Barbara was on Hannah Montana circa 2011. As I scrolled down my tumblr dashboard last night I came across the name again, only in a less comical tone. May 23rd saw a killing spree committed by Elliot Rodger who took the lives of at least 6 young people. Prior to the attack Rodger posted a video on YouTube in which he classed his act as one of retribution. Whilst watching the video I realised that I was listening to somebody who has been failed by our society. Not because he couldn't get laid, but because he had been taught that he, as a male, deserved to. Elliot Rodger was acting in retribution for being denied sex from girls - what we have here is a victim of the friend zone:

THE S WORD

"She's such a slut!"

Aged 12, I overheard this being spat out as I walked down the school garden path. It was my second year in an all girls' school and (surprisingly) the first time I had heard the word being said in 'real life'. Standing before me were two girls ejecting a succession of hate-filled words about their (coincidentally absent) peer. That same night I found myself sitting at the desktop and typing the four letters into the urban dictionary search bar - s l u t:

SHOW ME THE LEG

How Media Failed Women 2013

While fulfilling my role as a middle class teenager by watching 'Have I Got News For You' on Sunday evening, my attention was caught at the mention of the name Susanna Reid. Going to school at stupid o'clock every morning leaves me with incredibly small opportunity, if any, to watch breakfast TV so my knowledge was as limited as anybody's when last year's Strictly star was brought into conversation.