Your Skirt's Too Short

Mood: feminist.
Listening to: 'Anything But Ordinary' by Avril Lavigne
Hungry for: food.
Bella says: 'Sorry I peed in the corridor, mummy!'

So I've found this great book by Australian novellist and columnist Emily Maguire - Your Skirt's Too Short. It discusses the ridiculous expectations of women, and, to a lesser extent, of men, and how they contradict each other. It also discusses, in a perfect world, how the sexual expectations of men and women will be the same, if not non-existant.

It's something I've argued with for a long time. A man who sleeps around is 'manly' - a woman who sleeps around is a 'slut'. Why is that?

Okay, so I don't sleep around. I'm underaged, for starters, and I'm a sworn virgin until marriage - not because of some hokey religion, but because I want to. Why? Not because I'm afraid of being a slut. Simply because to me, sex has more meaning and besides, I have big dreams - a baby at sixteen is not one of them.

But I still think it's my right, once I'm over sixteen, to have my own private life and not be labelled - labelled as a slut, because I am a woman. If I were a man, I don't think people give a shit. This is the sad fact of life, but it's something we can change.

When we see a teenager pregnant, or with a small child, we often think, how irresponsible. And yes, she is, most definately. But we often push aside the fact that there is another person involved, but because he can just walk away from the situation, or even ask her to kill her own baby, we often forget about him. Women are forced to carry the evidence of their life's mistakes with them - men, more often or not, can just wipe their hands clean. Which is not fair.

I'm not saying that all women should rush out and sleep with the first man they see. I still think modern society is oversexed, but it seems that only women find themselves in hot water. We have to learn not to judge each other by our personal decisions.

I hope, one day, we will reach that point.