I wore a skirt.

I wore a skirt yesterday. And I felt like a woman. And it bothers me.

I struggle constantly with being a woman. I want to be independent. I want to be autonomous. I want my decisions and my personality to be completely my own and not determined by societal gender norms. Unfortunately, I have the most difficult time coming to terms with this. And then I realized, trying to be an independent woman, trying to live my life on my own terms, is supposed to be difficult. Living a life, having a mindset that is truly outside of cultural influence is never easy.

I have something embarrassing to confess. When I was a senior in high school, I fell head over heels for this guy. After a few months, he broke up with me because he "didn't want to be in love with someone who was just going to go off to college." Upon getting my responses back from these college, I only got accepted to UH, and wait-listed to two others. Instead of pushing for the two colleges to accept me, I allowed myself to go to UH, just so I could prove to this boy that he could be with me. After pursuing him further, I was rejected. As embarrassing as this is to admit, I have to understand that I need to learn from this experience. I foolishly let a man determine a major life decision of mine, only to lose out on great opportunities.

And now, four years later, I'm at another pivotal moment in my adult life. I have a career that I'm about to embark on. And all I can think about is my current boyfriend. Am I staying in SF post-graduation because of him? Maybe. And I feel I am compromising once more my future for a man. I am falling into a trap that many women fall into. I am accepting my supposed fate as a woman, and allowing myself to surrender to these gender norms. Every time I feel womanly in a skirt or when I get emotional or when I spend more time complaining about men than discussing serious issues, these times make me feel I am failing as a feminist. I want to gain control of my life. I want to become a woman who doesn't subscribe to society's expectations of me. I want to be stronger. I want to be autonomous. I want to prove to others that being a woman doesn't mean I have to think or act or dress a certain way.

Being a woman is hard. Being a woman who rejects gender norms is even harder.

Diablo Cody Stole My Idea (sorta)

So back in the day (which happened to be freshman year of high school), my girlfriends and I huddled around a bathroom stall, nervously joking to one another. We were, of course, adding levity to the fact that one of our own was anxiously waiting the results of a pregnancy test on the other side of the door. Three minutes later, negative. Yay to no teen mothers! Yay to no abortions! Yay to another un-ruined life!

These occasions (more often than I'd like to admit) helped me develop a brain-script (script for a film that existed only in my brain) about a snarky, geek-chic teen girl who became pregnant from a one-night encounter with a friend. However, where Diablo Cody failed in her Juno story, I (think I have) succeeded. Instead, I have the teen grapple with the idea of an abortion. Juno allowed for the main character to consider abortion for ten minutes; I created an entire story about it.

What upsets me most about current media is how unplanned pregnancy is discussed. Juno, Knocked Up, 16 and Pregnant. These stories make us (us = young women) think that abortion really isn't an option. No one really considers "dealing with the problem," and if they do, this decision is made quickly. Instead, this difficult, but sometimes necessary, step is played off as just another punch line. Young women, as consumers of media, are taught that abortion is never to be taken seriously, only because it apparently doesn't exist.

Which is why I would like to change that. Ever see 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days? If not, I strongly recommend it. It's no surprise that a film like this was made in Europe, and not the US. American audiences simply wouldn't be able to handle how heavy this film is. While my personal filmmaking style is not so intense, I would like to make a film that deals directly with a young woman's pregnancy, mental anguish, and final decision to get an abortion. If something like that could get national attention, maybe we wouldn't have 16 and Pregnant or so-called "pregnancy pacts."

Topicless

I need to motivate myself to actually write in this blog. I feel like I'm not taking it seriously, although I really want to. I keep convincing myself that my life is uninteresting. I'm sure if I tried harder, I would have a plethora of topics to discuss. Not right now though. I have a class to wake up early for.