About Beatrice...

A few weeks ago I turned 20 and found myself in, what I like to call, a mid-mid-life crisis.

One day I was walking home from campus and there was a group of 8 or 9 year olds ahead of me. They were deeply involved in a boisterous conversation about their secret club. It seems there was some confusion about precisely who could and could not recieve membership. First on the agenda, was an age requirement. One of the boys boldly asserted that no one above the age of 16 may be granted entry. Another one quickly countered with the more inclusive age of 19. His argument was that as long as you are still a teen you are not technically an adult and therefore you should not be excluded from the top-secret club. The whole group nodded in agreement and moved onto the next order of business.

It was at this moment that I realized I am no longer in "The Club". I am now one of those big (figuratively, as I stand at the towering height of 5'2"), bossy, boring grow-ups that takes everything too seriously and never has any fun. This was part 1 of the crisis.

Part 2 struck me when I realized that I have become an angry feminist. Recognized worldwide for being the least fun group of people ever to walk the planet (except for maybe the Huns, I don't think they'd be able to take a joke either). I have always been a feminist. When I was in 9 I spelled women "womyn" even though I lost marks on every spelling test I wrote. I attended a conference entitled "The Power of Women" featuring Jane Goodall and Lynda Carter when I was 13. And when I was 18 I decided I wanted to major in Gender and Women's Studies at university. However, despite all of this, I never thought of myself as "one of those" angry feminists. But it struck me that I am, in fact, angry and frustrated on a daily basis. When I bear witness to our culture's blatent disregard for the violence being perpetrated against women and the systematic oppression that they (we) must overcome I am filled with a growling rage.

SO HERE IS MY MISSION:

I am 20 years old and I just wanna have fun. I like movies and dancing and girls and comic books and music and tv (box set or otherwise) and fashion and boys and politics and youtube and celebrity blogs. But I want to be able to participate in all of this without feeling alienated because I am also a feminist and an activist. My mini crisis forced me to take a little more responsibility for the pop culture I so ravenously consume and my new approach is this: I refuse to compartmentalize the things I like and things I believe any longer. I have created this simple blog to sort out all the complicated issues that people like me face as gender-conscious individuals just trying to tap dance through this crazy world.

Here is where its all going to go down. The big clash between my values as a feminist and my infatuation with Paris Hilton.

Watch out...cause it ain't gonna be pretty.