Why Being a Girl is Fine.

Here are the facts. Girls aren’t very strong or very fast and they seem scientifically worse at throwing things. No matter how many cross-fit classes I go to or push-ups I make myself do in the morning, that random homeless man who hasn’t been to the gym in ever is still going to have no problem beating me up.

We don’t make Wikipedia articles and we don’t make very much money. We have babies, and we have to sit down to pee, and if life wasn’t bad enough we have to have ten years more of it than boys. I can’t open water bottles by myself.

Being a boy seems so much better than being a girl that if I had gotten to choose, I would have chosen boy a hundred times. Unless, right when it was time to choose they handed out paper and pencils to everyone and then Leandra Medine came and sat by me and was like “Hey I’m putting down girl” and I was like “ME TOO LEANDRA MEDINE. Anything you do I’ll also do.”

I like that scenario because I meet Leandra Medine in it. And she sort of thinks I’m cool, right? I mean, she sits by me. We’re sort of friends in that scenario?

Anyway, I’ve made a few bad decisions but here is the good news: a list of Reasons Being a Girl is Fine.

Girls can interact with strange children.

I can walk up to anyone’s child anywhere and start talking to them, and the kid probably won’t be scared, and their parents won’t either. When boys do this everyone gets in trouble. I’m not saying I want to do this, but I can. If this doesn’t impress you, you won’t love the rest of this list.

I’m pretty sure we don’t sweat as much.

I’m not going to do any research on this, but it seems like we do. Sweat seems mostly bad. It seems a little good, so we sweat a little, but that’s all we need. Which is great news because girl deodorant always contains glitter or mango and is named after gentle birds or whispering. Win win, girls.

I'm not sure what this is for but it's called "truth or pear" and it's definitely not for sweat.

Girls can like anything.

Girls can say “Oh man growing up I was such a tomboy, I loved Legos and I was super into sports” and people think “This is a really cool girl.” Boys can say “Oh, I was obsessed with soap operas and dieting to give myself better skin” and, in a few years or maybe a few months it will be totally cool but society is a little behind right now. Right now girls are the ones who can like anything. Ok that’s a lame reason. But what about clothes, girls can wear boy clothes if they want. Girls have twice the clothing options. I’m trying to pad this list a bit.

We don’t go bald.

If I had to lie awake an hour worrying about balding for every hour I lie awake wording about gingivitis and osteoporosis I would never get any sleep.

Better odds of beating a shark.

Made that one up.

Lotions are ours.

You know how when you hear about to International Women’s Day and you think “cool!” and then you think “wait, does that mean all the other 364+ days are International Men’s Day?” Well, they are, but don’t worry about it, just go to the pharmacy and go to the lotion aisle: eighty different kinds of lotion and maybe three are especially for men. All the rest are ours, girls. It’s like a moisturizing version of that scene in Lion King. Sometimes I worry for a second that I have velvet instead of skin. (Three out of four people didn’t understand this sentence so I’m breaking it down: my skin is velvety soft.)

First dibs out of burning ships and buildings.

This has never come in handy before but it’s a nice-to-have.

Being a girl seems to get more fine every day.

Just 50 years ago we weren’t allowed to wear pants, and 500 years ago we were livestock. Show me a horse that’s in the senate, I’d love to see it, but until you do, I’m going to say girls have getting better best. By the time you get to the end of this list it will be more fine to be a girl than when you started. By the year 3000 it’s going to be insane. And, like I already complained about at the beginning, we live a really long time so we’ll get to hang out in more of it.

I don't know anything about your dog.

In high school my family had an exchange student. She had the perfect level of English fluency - the level of French fluency I hope I have - where everything she said was technically right, but sometimes just a little tiny bit wrong.

The best example is one morning she looked down at our dog and asked: “Is your dog a man?”

“He’d like to think so,” I said.

Our dog’s name is McGee, and he is a man. But if people think he’s a girl, or a woman, I don’t correct them. 

If someone says “She's so cute” I don't correct them, they're right. My dog is pretty cute, I think. The "she" part doesn't matter so much to me. Dogs aren't boys. Dogs aren't girls. Dogs are dogs, to me.

If someone says “Why does she smell that way?” I don’t say it's because he’s a man and that’s what men smell like. I usually just say that we don’t wash him very often. The groomer said he has sensitive skin so we’re not supposed to. Try standing further away if it bothers you. Or stand upwind maybe. 

It’s ok that our dog is sensitive. Our dog doesn’t care if you call him a him or a her. I'm almost positive our dog doesn't subscribe to any traditional or even non-traditional gender norms. All I really know is he’ll lick up his own pee if we don’t move him along fast enough. Licking pee is something our dog avidly subscribes to.

Wikipedia says that being soft, dependent, and emotional are feminine characteristics and my dog is all these things. If you count leg-humping as being sexually aggressive, that’s a masculine trait. But if you count leg-humping as flirtatious, then it's feminine. Our dog has a few different styles of leg-humping for different occasions.

The point is if you have a great dog, and I bet you do, I’ll want to ask “Can I pet him” or “Can I pet her” and honestly I can’t tell if your dog is a boy or a girl, so I’m going to have to guess.

And I’ll probably be wrong and you’ll probably correct me, and that’s fine, but I won’t really get it.

I don't think your dog cares. And I think your dog smells great.

Small world

Lately my social media networks can't get enough of girls who are boys now.

Everyone wants to say how they feel about kids deciding whether they're boys or girls, kids being told whether they’re boys or girls, parents listening to kids about whether they’re boys or girls, whatever,

It just seems like a lot of yelling and not a lot of people asking why there are only two things you can be.

It seems like a sad and small world if it is a world where you can make a human being (you can make a human being!) and then all you can give it is GIRL. And if the girl says “I don’t like girl” the biggest thing you can say back is “Oh no problem - here is BOY. That will be what you like.” 

Two is just not a lot of options. 

If I went too a Kiefer Nissan dealership and all they had was two cars to choose from, I would take my business elsewhere. Even if they let me pick either car. And I think any three-year old would agree with me. 

Guys I know this is real pixilated but it's worth it because click on it it's a link to a factory where you can order slides.

This Maja Angelou Sesame Street song doesn't seem relevant but it is the best video in the world so I'm putting it here anyway. I would do karaoke a lot more often if this song were available.

Write me a rap song

I run almost every day, but never in shorts.

I always wear running tights. I like running tights because they look like what a superhero would wear but mostly I wear them because I'm a girl and it's 2014 and so, I hate my legs. That's what girls do in 2014.

Boooo, legs, right? Hate 'em. I have the worst legs.

But then a few weeks ago all my running tights were all in the wash and so instead I put on shorts and, you guys. I was completely wrong. It turns out I actually have amazing legs.

There are some things words can't describe but there are other things that inspire millions of words, that deserve thousands of volumes of literature describing them and my legs are that second type of thing.

If I were a poet I would write poems about these legs. I'm not great at poetry but you know what I am great at? Legs. I have the best legs.

So now it's weeks later and I wear shorts every day and sometimes when I run past a bus stop or restaurant or dog-walker someone will yell "I love your legs!" and I keep running even though I want so badly to stop and talk to them because we have so many similar interests: I also love my legs.

I don't have cheekbones

Hey guess what it's 5 great things about not wearing makeup for 5 days:

1. You can rub your eyes in comic disbelief and you’re ready to go to a waterpark at a moment’s notice. I wrote that sentence in a way that makes it seem like those two things are related but the only connection is they’re both easier to do without eyeliner.

2. Everyone thinks you’re sick so they don’t make loud noises.

3. You look enough like a child to order from the kids menu, old enough to get senior discounts at movies, enough like a boy to use the men’s bathroom if the line's shorter, and bad enough to be completely invisible. I haven't tested any of these but I have a good feeling about all of them.

4. Beyonce sings about you. There's lots of language in this, the main language is English but there’s also swear words.

5. Now it’s time to think of something to not do next week. I think it’s going to be laundry.