What's a Girl Gotta Do?

by Holly Bourne

  This really wasn’t how I wanted it to go – boys like Teddy enjoying it, using it to wind me up. But then, what did I expect?

  I got down ungracefully and made my way over. Teddy saw me coming and puffed his chest out even more. The others all started wolf-whistling. My skin prickled… The horn in my hand… I was so desperate to throw it at his fat arrogant head… But I’d promised Mr Packson no more violence.

  “You know using ‘lezzas’ as an insult is, like, the most backward messed-up insult ever?” I said, rage flowing through me. At them. At myself, for letting them get to me.

  Teddy shrugged. “I just call it how I see it.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Me too. And you’re a disgusting pig-headed RUNT. Now, why don’t you all just run along, or I’ll tell Mr Packson about your disgusting homophobia?”

  I stormed back to my table with jeers like “Oooh, she’s going to tell on us” and “Ooooh, someone’s on the blob” following me. I heard female laughter too, and saw Jenny and some of her friends giggling at me from the sidelines. I flipped Teddy my middle finger but kept walking. FemSoc crowded around, offering me words of encouragement.

  “Did you actually just call him a runt?” Evie asked, patting my back. “That’s my new favourite insult ever.”

  Will peered over the top of his lens. “I got all that on camera.”

  I smiled at everyone, accepting their commiseration, or whatever it was. It made me feel slightly better, but my stomach was still tangled into an impenetrable ball and the anger had a side order of exhaustion about it. What was I doing? Why was I putting myself through this?

  And it was only my first day…

  I sat back, grabbed a handful of crisps and chowed them down with half a bottle of Diet Coke. “So…” I clapped my hands like nothing had happened. “Cognitive dissonance.” The others quietened, apart from the crunch of crisps. “As I was saying, I was thinking about how it relates to feminism, and how it will impact my project. I think one of the hardest things about being a feminist is cognitive dissonance. Your heart knows better…but, like, we’ve been so brainwashed into a certain way of being that it’s almost impossible NOT to be a hypocrite. Like, knowing your weight shouldn’t matter, but also really wanting to be thin…thinner than your friends probably. Or, like, I know that all the fairy-tale love stories we’re told about Prince Charmings sweeping us off our feet are dangerous bullshit… I want to be a strong, independent woman with a good career and I don’t want my happiness to depend on some bloke on a pony rescuing me—”

  “That would be amazing,” Amber interrupted. “If it was an actual pony. How naff would a prince look on an actual pony? His feet scraping along the ground?”

  Evie giggled. “A Shetland pony?”

  “Even better!”

  I paused to let everyone giggle, and took another sip of my Coke.

  “But…“I continued, “I also really like watching that sort of film. Total cognitive dissonance! PLUS, sometimes, occasionally – well, more than occasionally – I dream of that sort of thing happening to me. Some gorgeous guy just rocking up and I fall totally in love with him and never have to worry about anything ever again…”

  I looked over at Will, who was STILL filming. He must have had, like, ten battery packs in his pocket. He caught my eye, raised his eyebrows and I felt myself redden. It was MUCH harder talking about this sort of stuff with a boy there. It made even me feel shy about being brutally honest. I could kind of see the point of keeping these conversations females-only. No boys had expressed an interest in joining FemSoc anyway, despite all our best recruitment efforts…

  “I know it’s totally bullshit, but I do kind of fantasize about it…” Will raised his eyebrows again but I ignored him. “So, you see, I’m a total hypocrite, as Amber says.”

  Amber grinned – like she didn’t mind at all that I was a huge hypocrite. Megan had been doodling next to me and I looked at her sketch of a Disney princess, carrying a briefcase and wearing power specs. “That’s really good,” I muttered.

  She went red. “Thanks.”

  Another FemSoc member, Jess, put her hand up. “So you’re not allowed to watch romcoms for a month?”

  I shook my head. “Well, they’ve got better ones now with strong female leads that may pass the Bechdel test, but I won’t be able to watch anything where it’s just a really clichéd female whose only storyline is whether or not she’ll find love.”

  Another member put her hand up. “So, why is make-up okay then? I mean, no offence, but you wear a lot of it…”

  I smiled. Because I did. I really did. My face was essentially always half eyeliner. The girl asking, Sylvia, was a useful member of FemSoc, in that she had really strong beliefs but was totally different from me, Evie and Amber. Much more old-skool hardcore feminist. We had to calm down her men-are-all-arseholes-who-should-be-burned monologues quite often, and she’d threatened to start a new group as sometimes she lost her temper with us, and told us we were too soft.

  “So…make-up, yes…” I nodded at her. “I had a long think about whether I can be a feminist and still wear make-up. I mean, you could argue we wear it just to make us more attractive to guys.”

  Sylvia nodded furiously.

  “I mean, I really enjoy wearing it, but if it’s just there to oppress me, then I guess I’m a hypocrite… But then I realized that I don’t feel oppressed wearing make-up. In fact, I find wearing it quite liberating. It’s a way of expressing myself, of being creative. Actually, I feel sorry for boys who don’t feel they can wear it. And, most importantly, if all boys died tomorrow—”

  “We can but hope,” said Sylvia. A few of the group laughed. I didn’t.

  “Hey, Sylvia, don’t make me honk my horn at you,” I warned and she scowled. “But, yes…if they all died tomorrow, well, you know what? I would still wear it! It may have initially been invented for some screwed-up reason, but now I feel it’s mine to reclaim. The same with skirts and dresses – again I feel sorry for boys that they feel they can only wear trousers…”

  “I think their societal perks more than make up for it,” Sylvia interrupted again. “You know…being paid more, getting to run most of the country and major corporations…having privilege shovelled onto them from the day they’re out of the womb.”

  I saw a couple of people roll their eyes and knew I had to wrap things up. “I don’t feel like a hypocrite when I wear make-up,” I continued. “Therefore I’m going to continue to wear it.” I paused…really wishing Will wasn’t here for this next bit…especially with his camera running. “Hair removal on the other hand…”

  All the girls laughed.

  “No, Lottie? You’re going to stop shaving?”

  I nodded, glowing redder and redder. “I can confirm that I’m going to stop shaving my bodily hair growths.”

  “Everything?” Will’s voice called out over his lens cap. There was so much innuendo in that one word and he knew it – he stared right at me, a playful smile on his face. The glorious sexy bastard that I was quickly finding out he was.

  I nodded again. “Everything.” And I fixed him with such a Lottie-special stare that it was his turn to blush.

  “I think this is one of the things I’m most scared of, especially because of my moustache.” The table laughed; at least two girls butted in with, “Oh, Lottie, you don’t have a moustache!”

  “I know I don’t,” I laughed back. “Because I wax it! But I don’t feel liberated waxing it, not like with make-up. I’m not waxing it to express myself – the same with leg hair and armpit hair. I’m doing it out of pure fear. Because I know I’d basically be shunned if I didn’t. That’s not a liberated place to be in. Imagine if right now, I raised my arms to reveal a huge, hairy bush in my armpit.”

  At least three girls shuddered. Even Amber said, “Eww.”

  “You see! I think it’s disgusting too. But I also know that it’s totally natural for women to have body hair. It’s just society has decided it’s gross –
and we should all look like prepubescent plastic hairless Barbies. And, judging by the sheer extortionate cost of replacement razor blades, there’s probably a capitalist agenda behind that too.”

  “A what now?” someone asked. I tried not to sigh.

  “To make money,” I explained. “Anyway, I have total cognitive dissonance about body hair, so if I’m going to do this properly…I have to stop shaving…” I still felt sick at the thought. “Luckily, what with it being winter and all, you’ll probably not notice my legs. But in a week and a half’s time, you should all start a Lottie’s moustache watch…”

  And, just as they all leaned in closer, without even knowing they were doing it, to inspect my mutant upper lip…I was saved by the jukebox. A ferocious cheer erupted from Teddy and his mates and one of Rihanna’s less…er…liberated songs boomed through the college speakers.

  We all got up on our chairs.

  nineteen

  I was exhausted beyond exhausted when I got home. Philosophy had been a nightmare – because every philosopher ever had exterior genitalia. And I’d forgotten to tell Mr Packson that in our get-it-all-out-the-way meeting. Art had been an equal fiasco – though at least I had Amber and Megan in my class. Word had got round pretty fast in college about what I was doing.

  “She hates men,” I heard a girl whisper, as I was mixing up my paints.

  “It’s the Lottie Show again,” her friend giggled, before Amber stood up, loomed right behind them and said, “Can I help you?”

  It made it worse that it was girls saying it.

  I rattled my key in my front door when I got home – having to do the jiggle-dance I always had to do to stop it from sticking. The waft of cooking hit me as I stepped over the threshold and fiddled my way out of the beaded curtain.

  “Lottie, is that you?”

  I picked my way through the piles of laundry Mum had folded on the living-room floor and went into the kitchen. She was stirring a pot of something that smelled fantastic. Mum went through vegan “phases” – usually if someone came and did a talk at her centre. I was always very happy to eat dead bits of animals, but vegan cooking was pretty awesome too. Especially when Mum ground up all the spices herself in the pestle and mortar.

  “Hi,” I breathed, leaning against the door frame to stop myself drooping. All I wanted was to flop upstairs, but my family has this thing about always acknowledging each other when we get home.

  She stirred her saucepan once more then clanged a lid down. “Hello, sweetie. How was your day? You didn’t trip over the laundry, did you? I’m about to take it upstairs.”

  “It was fine.” I took in the laundry and the cooking and the sparkling surfaces of the kitchen that were always like that because Mum always did them. And did another sigh… I was so exhausted, and yet…here, still, the world was calling. “I started my project today.”

  Mum wiped her hands on her apron and her face pulled together in concern. “How did it go?”

  I nodded. “Fine, I guess… Mr Packson gave me the go-ahead.”

  “That’s a relief. And all your classes went okay too?”

  I thought of the humiliation of being dragged out of English – and all the other horrors of the day.

  “Yeah, they went fine.”

  “Any coursework?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, as long as this thing doesn’t interfere.”

  I was going to delay bringing it up. I was going to break my own rules. But her saying that got my heckles up. So I just came out and said, “Why do you do all the cooking?”

  Mum looked at her bubbling pot, confused. “What do you mean?”

  I ignored her. “And the laundry, and most of the cleaning. Why is it always you?”

  I’d never really thought about it. But, now, with my ultimate feminism searchlight on full-beam, I was seeing everything everywhere. Mum did basically all the household chores. Well, the ones I wasn’t roped into doing – which was usually taking out the bins and stacking the dishwasher. She almost always cooked, she did the laundry, she hoovered, she chucked bleach around our two bathrooms, she washed up all the glass recycling ready to go in the special green bins at the end of the drive, she picked up the stray mugs and crumby plates that inevitably get scattered around a house and returned them to the kitchen… She did it all. All Dad did was cut the grass really. And you only need to do that like twice a year, right? I’d never noticed it before. Now it seemed glaringly obvious.

  Mum went on the defensive, even though I was on her side. “Well, your dad has work to do.” She stirred the pot even though it didn’t need stirring.

  “But you work too!”

  “Yes, but my job’s just a bit of a side job.”

  Was it? She worked hard, Mum. She had to do Saturdays as that was when most of her clients were off work. And I remember her job kept us all going financially a few years ago when Dad was made redundant. It was six months before he got the professor job. I don’t like to think about that time. Dad went…dark. He sat in the house way too much. He even started watching University Challenge reruns on TV in jogging bottoms, where, usually, he only ever read big heavy hardback books in his special chair.

  “I don’t think it’s fair,” I continued, shrugging.

  I jumped when Mum clattered her spoon down hard. “For Christ’s sake, Charlotte. Do not go dragging me into this project of yours. We’re being understanding enough as it is.”

  I dropped my mouth open. “But it’s not fair. Dad should do more around the house!”

  “Oh yes? How about you? Maybe instead of fussing, you could help me carry the laundry up to your room? YOUR laundry, I may add?”

  I shook my head. “That’s not what this is about.” Though I felt guilty for not taking my laundry up. Or, like, doing it, ever.

  “Your father does LOADS,” Mum insisted. “Please don’t bring us into this…thing of yours.”

  “I can’t help it,” I said, honestly.

  “Well try.” She picked up the spoon again and turned back. Taking the hint, I slinked out – picking up my pile of clean clothes on my way up the stairs.

  I couldn’t concentrate on coursework. I turned my music up loud to try and drown out the carousel of stuff whirring around my head.

  The humiliation of my English lesson…the anger at Teddy, the boys he hung around with, and those girls in my art class…the annoying stirring I got when I thought about meeting Will’s eye in the cafeteria…Mum’s face…Mum’s anger. I was supposed to be sketching some still life for art, and I had all the fruit set up. But I’d not really got around to actually drawing it and it was starting to go a bit puffy. This wasn’t like me. I took homework very seriously – I always did it straight away. The overly sweet smell emanating from the carefully arranged bowl of oranges suggested otherwise.

  I didn’t like it when I saw moral gaps in my own parents…

  I’d grown up thinking they were so wise. Led mostly by Mum, we’d spent most of my childhood summers trekking around amazing countries, learning about balance and breathing and “Energy” – capitalized and put within speechmarks – and all the other superior what-life-is-all-about stuff. But I was starting to see cracks. Hypocrisies. Cognitive dissonances, I guess. I was an only child. I was all they had. Their one shot at raising a human – and stuff like “balance” and “values” were starting to get chucked out the ethical window. I’d never even considered feminism and how that related to them either… Until today. Now I saw my entire childhood flash back really fast, and memories popped out, tapping me on the head, yelling, Lottie, come on, remember this? It will ruin your day even more, and you’re deffo in that kind of mood!

  Memories like…whenever the cricket was on, which was a lot, Dad wouldn’t even let us talk in the house – and Mum, even though she’d be knackered from fitting in her work around looking after me, would have to take me swimming. “That’s just the way your dad is with the cricket,” she’d say, like that made it okay… And how, whenev
er they had friends over, even supposedly “enlightened” friends from the centre, Mum would exhaust herself, running around, asking people what drinks they’d like, making sure all the food was coming out on time, whirling and twirling, while Dad just chatted and laughed with everyone, and didn’t even say thank you or help with the washing-up afterwards, but declared himself exhausted and took me up to bed… How we all sat around the table and talked about Dad’s job and what was going on with it all the time…but never really Mum’s. And if she started sharing a story about an interesting client, I could see him glaze over and not quite take it in… Plus I’d never once seen him clean the toilet…

  Could it be that my forward-thinking parents, the ones who tell me to reach for the stars and mend the world and believe in equality for all, my parents who flipped an actual coin to decide whose surname I’d take to make it fair, despite all that…could they be in an unequal relationship?

  My phone beeped, and I jumped at it. Grateful for the distraction, any distraction, from all the treacle-like thoughts my brain was determined to wade through.

  It was Evie.

  You okay, Lottie Bottie? You kicked extreme ass today. But that usually means a day has been hard. Call me anytime. E x x

  A hint of a smile made its way onto my face. It spread wider when my phone beeped again. Amber.

  I think I’ve got repetitive strain injury from honking my horn too much. You are my hero, Lottie. Now will you please come over and massage my achy palm?

  As the light faded into blackness outside my window, I messaged them back and forth. I heard Dad come in. Mum called me for dinner. I ate in silence, listening to Dad blah on about some academic paper he was trying to get published, staring down at my plate.

  I was less than twenty-four hours in, and my spirit was waning.

  Back in my room, I tried to catch up on the work I’d missed from my day off with Megan. Eventually I heard my parents’ getting-ready-for-bed noises – the click of the bathroom light, the thud of their bedroom door, a low murmur of voices, then silence.