Men Straight Shun
It was a Sunday morning.
Not just any Sunday morning. It was the kind of Sunday morning where in my family you got your picture taken at least two dozen times before heading out the door and piling into the sedan. The kind of Sunday morning relatives gathered at your house from out of town with chocolate bunnies and baskets filled with colorful eggs. Grandma came 45 minutes west from the coast. Uncle Rick and Aunt Lynda came up from Miami. Aunt Judy, Uncles Charles and all the cousins came all the way down from Atlanta, GA.
It was the kind of Sunday morning my mom would make me put on the most ridiculous frilly white dress in the world. The kind of Sunday morning my parents wouldn't let me skip out on church even if it were the middle of Armageddon. It was the anniversary of the resurrection of their Lord and Savior. Easter Sunday, circa 1999.
I was 13 years old and on the outside I was a poster-girl for Protestantism but what no one knew was that deep down I hated the way that church was run (a patriarchal hierarchy that believed women and children for the most part should be seen and not heard and that the most quiet and angelic of all should be the pretty little girls), dresses and white frilly things (white isn't even a color) and milk chocolate.
Milk chocolate is just gross and red had always been my favorite color. But not that particular Sunday. That Sunday I thought I might never like the color red again. That was my first time; and while the blood was soaking through my dress I sang Amazing Grace as angelically as I possibly could, completely unaware that I was staining the embroidered pew cushion beneath me. When I realized I was horrified but at the same time slightly amused. Now I just think it’s funny.
I think that changing the social stigma surrounding periods is possible but that it would not necessarily be easy. I actually have no idea how you would go about doing this other than by educating and talking openly about it with the people who are willing to listen. Sadly, however, it’s the people who aren’t willing to listen who are probably contributing more to the problem.
I don’t think that girls are educated enough about the dangers of eating disorders, I think that they should be given more shocking, horrifying facts about the effects at a younger age—they should know that these are diseases and that they are deadly and that by being a female in this society these girls are at a high risk of developing an eating disorder. People think kids are so innocent and are for some reason afraid of being real with them but I believe it is necessary to educate them about the reality of the world we live in.
Not just any Sunday morning. It was the kind of Sunday morning where in my family you got your picture taken at least two dozen times before heading out the door and piling into the sedan. The kind of Sunday morning relatives gathered at your house from out of town with chocolate bunnies and baskets filled with colorful eggs. Grandma came 45 minutes west from the coast. Uncle Rick and Aunt Lynda came up from Miami. Aunt Judy, Uncles Charles and all the cousins came all the way down from Atlanta, GA.
It was the kind of Sunday morning my mom would make me put on the most ridiculous frilly white dress in the world. The kind of Sunday morning my parents wouldn't let me skip out on church even if it were the middle of Armageddon. It was the anniversary of the resurrection of their Lord and Savior. Easter Sunday, circa 1999.
I was 13 years old and on the outside I was a poster-girl for Protestantism but what no one knew was that deep down I hated the way that church was run (a patriarchal hierarchy that believed women and children for the most part should be seen and not heard and that the most quiet and angelic of all should be the pretty little girls), dresses and white frilly things (white isn't even a color) and milk chocolate.
Milk chocolate is just gross and red had always been my favorite color. But not that particular Sunday. That Sunday I thought I might never like the color red again. That was my first time; and while the blood was soaking through my dress I sang Amazing Grace as angelically as I possibly could, completely unaware that I was staining the embroidered pew cushion beneath me. When I realized I was horrified but at the same time slightly amused. Now I just think it’s funny.
I think that changing the social stigma surrounding periods is possible but that it would not necessarily be easy. I actually have no idea how you would go about doing this other than by educating and talking openly about it with the people who are willing to listen. Sadly, however, it’s the people who aren’t willing to listen who are probably contributing more to the problem.
I don’t think that girls are educated enough about the dangers of eating disorders, I think that they should be given more shocking, horrifying facts about the effects at a younger age—they should know that these are diseases and that they are deadly and that by being a female in this society these girls are at a high risk of developing an eating disorder. People think kids are so innocent and are for some reason afraid of being real with them but I believe it is necessary to educate them about the reality of the world we live in.
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