1.) School
2.) Exams
3.) The patriarchy
4.) The fact that statistically, even if I go to Oxbridge, I will get a less paid job than a man with the same qualifications
5.) Shitty Wi-Fi
6.) When the boy I like reads my texts and doesn’t reply
7.) More of my friends have lost their virginity through rape than consensually
8.) I think I’m going to die a virgin
9.) Up until last summer my best friend told me I was a whore and no longer a virgin because I used tampons from the first time I got my period
10.) The whole bloody concept of virginity (it’s no longer the 1800s, women don’t need to be ‘deflowered’)
11.) I got called a frigid bitch for refusing to give a guy a blow job for half a bottle of vodka
12.) The fact that being thin matters more to me than it should
13.) My friends think the fact that I’m passionate about what I believe in is funny
14.) I should probably stop smoking
15.) The fact that a guy I’ve met once thinks it’s ok to ask me if I’ve a) been raped, b) how many boyfriends I’ve had in the past, c) tell my friends that ‘he likes my tits, even though they’re small’, d) presume that because I hate slut-shaming that I must, therefore be ‘a slut’
16.) I hung my underwear from my skylight to dry because there was no space anywhere else and a builder working on the house opposite complained because my pants were ‘distracting him’
17.) Three girls in my year at school have been hospitalised for eating disorders
18.) Kurt Cobain is dead
19.) I’m regularly too lazy to shave my legs
20.) I regularly get told that I’m too clever and tall so guys will never like me
21.) My mum doesn’t allow me in a taxi cab by myself because her best friend got raped in a taxi
22.) It’s a normal thing to be catcalled at when I’m in town, in my school uniform with my friends
23.) My geography teacher thinks it’s entertaining when I get angry about the way he objectifies women
24.) Is a Brazilian really necessary?
25.) My politics teacher laughs at me when I say I feel that everyone should vote because women died for it, because, according to him, women’s opinions don’t matter as much.
26.) I’m scared to walk alone at night
27.) I think I’m addicted to caffeine
28.) As a thin, white, native English speaker, with a private-school education, I get so much privilege for doing absolutely nothing
29.) Tuition fees
30.) How the fuck does UCAS work??!
- LK