#GirlsShitToo

Serendipity Strikes

The next day, Friday, I was getting all of my stuff out of my locker, and Benny, whose locker was below mine, told me he was about to go to the bathroom down the hall to drop the kids off at the pool, which was something Benny would tell the whole class from time to time. We laughed and it made me almost jealous that he could say it out loud with such ease. Such masculine ease.

And why could he? Because duh...boys shit. But girls shit too. So why couldn't I tell the world I was dropping the kids off at the pool without people freaking out?

And then...serendipity struck.

I raced into Ms. Brooks's classroom, hoping she was still there so I could get the green light for the topic that had just come to me. I had left her classroom last period glaring at the back of Valerie's pretty head and thinking I was going to have to email Ms. Brooks about an extension, like lots of my peers were planning to do, but now plans had changed. Feeling enthusiastic, I almost screamed out at her, but Adree sat in there, so I had to contain my excitement while the two of them finished talking. Adree was obviously getting an extension, because Ms. Brooks said to her, "Alright, you can take an extra week to figure it out, but you'll need to work harder in the upcoming weeks to make up for the missed week. Good luck." Then Ms. Brooks turned to me as Adree was leaving; she flipped her bluish hair as she walked past me and out the door.

"Hello, Dallas. You also having trouble coming up with an idea?"

"No, actually, I think I've got something! But I wanted to run it by you, because I don't know if it will work or not."

"Okay, try me."

Breathing deep, I attempted to articulate all the words I'd just been repeating over and over in my head so I could say them out loud in a way that made sense to her. "I want to start a movement that calls for females to appropriate the subtle perks of masculinity and being male." Bam: nailed it, word for freaking word.

"What do you mean by 'subtle' perks?" she asked, cocking her head to the side.

"You know, the ones that a lot of people don't really seem to care about, maybe because they think they don't matter. Like the fact that guys can show their nipples but girls can't. Or the fact that boys burp freely in the cafeteria but most girls won't. Or the reasons why boys don't have to maintain the shape of their eyebrows or wear bras, but we do. Stuff like that. I know you said we need to offer a creative perspective on a topic...and so I thought that by combining these kinds of ideas together and laying them out in a unique way for everyone to see, I might be able to be creative about this. To get girls really thinking about how masculinity can belong to them, too."

Her eyes widened, and she started nodding like she would whenever she got over-excited about descriptive grammar. "Yes, wow, good! So, how did you come up with this idea?"

"Well, earlier this week, a girl," one of your star students, by the way, "tried to convince me girls don't shit. Sorry—" I added, but it didn't matter, because Ms. Brooks didn't mind cussing. (Mr. Harber would have given me detention.) "—And people tell me that my name doesn't make sense for me because it's a 'boy's name,' and this summer I was scolded for wearing flip flops without toe nail polish, and I really do wish I could walk around on the beach without a top, and...well, I can come up with a million things, I'm sure. I just want girls to be able to see the awesomeness of masculinity, to be able to act masculine without being punished for it. Why should all the awesome minor masculine constructs belong only to boys and men? People might think they don't really matter...but it's that sort of thinking that keeps us separate, right?"

"Well, Dallas, I think this is great. You have a lot of good thoughts and you seem to be really excited about them, and I'm sure you'll find an audience easily, especially online. Do you know how you want to enact your project?"

"I've never made a video log before...but maybe I can do one of those?"

Nodding fiercely, like she would whenever she was talking about making revision "fun," she said, "You could do one each week."

"That seems like a lot..."

"Well, it's your project, but a short weekly vlog would fulfill the weekly writing requirement. You could do a weekly blog, too, if you want to...or you could come up with something else?"

Finally, I said, "Vlogs don't sound so bad," thinking that truthfully, they sounded like the least amount of writing, which was a huge plus. "And I could promote my vlogs on Twitter?"

"And use hashtags to get them trending, yes!" Ms. Brooks added.

"Okay. Yeah. I think I can do that. I use my Twitter a lot, anyway, and I have 112 followers already."

"Yes, yes, great. What are you going to name your movement?"

"Appropriate Masculinity."

Now she only gave a half smile, one of those smiles that indicated she didn't really like my title. The same smile she would give when students would try to tell her that, according to rules, the oxford comma wasn't necessary. "It's a good name, but very formal. I would suggest that you think of a name that is more welcoming and fun, especially if you want to reach a wider online audience."

I almost didn't want to say my second idea, and I did hesitate for a second, but it came out anyway. "What about...Girls Shit Too?"

This time, her smile was full. "I can definitely see #GirlsShitToo trending."

"You don't care that it has the word 'shit' in it?"

"Well, cussing can be rhetorical, and this is exemplified by the goals of your movement in relation to the title, because men get less shit for cussing than women do, as I'm sure you know. And that's what we'll tell the administration if they find out and get upset, all right? Now go home, and get started on that first vlog!"

...and that's exactly what I did.