a bit of a katie girl.

I’m a Katie Girl because of society. Society has created a mold for me that I am simultaneously trying to fight and fit into. Societal pressures are so much a part of me that I can no longer figure out the difference between what I want and what society wants me to want. This makes me complicated.

Who I am in the context of my society allows people to make assumptions about me. For example:

I am female, and therefore must love chocolate and hope to one day have a family.
I am from middle-class white suburbia and must therefore be naïve about issues like racism and poverty.
I am 23 and therefore must enjoy alcohol and going out on the weekends.
I am blond and therefore must be not so smart
I am from Minnesota and therefore must like hot dish and cold weather.
I am from the U.S. and therefore must know how to read and write.
I am a feminist and therefore have to be pro-choice.
I am a math minor and therefore must a nerd.

These are only a few examples, and while some of these stereotypes are true, some are false. Some I embrace, some I fight tooth and nail. Why do I do this? Why am I so afraid to either meet or not meet these expectations? Why do I care about what society says I should or shouldn’t be? I act different around my parents than I do around my friends. My co-workers see me in a different way than my clients do. I am always trying to figure out what people’s expectations are of me first and then deciding whether or not I want to try and meet them. I continually try to decide what I feel and what society has told me to feel. Despite years of searching, I still haven’t figured out who I am and who I want to be. That makes me complicated. That makes me a Katie Girl.

i’d like to offer my formal apology to this week’s katie girl for taking so long to put her entry up on the blog. and for always eating her chocolate chips. thanks for such a thoughtful response. for more information on the katie girl project or to submit an entry, click here.

i think it should go without saying that this woman is a serious katie girl. i met her at an awards ceremony this fall and couldn’t even speak in the presence of such an incredible activist. i tried to tell her all that her work had meant to me as a woman and as a feminist…but ended up only managing to cry and blubber something unintelligible. i would give anything to go to the upcoming v^10 conference, but since money constraints are preventing me from going to new orleans this year, i’ve been reading all i can.

so you can just about imagine my enthusiasm when i came across an entry on blogher.com informing me that maria niles was doing an interview with ms. ensler and would be taking questions from member bloggers. so i submitted a question…and maria asked it during the interview! click here to check it out! while you are at it, be sure and listen to the entire interview.

in case you don’t have time to check the whole thing out, i wanted to be sure and share this with you…a quote from eve that i think embodies the spirit of this project:

i think what it comes down to is this: we have a choice as women to be good or to be great. to me, what it means to be good is that you are polite and you’re well behaved, you don’t say what you feel, you don’t make waves, you don’t get in trouble and you’re not messy and you spend your life obsessing about your body and trying to be skinny…you are so good that you disappear and you don’t exist anymore. or you become great. you make a decision that you are going to be great. and what that means is that you are going to stand up for what you believe and speak your truth and know that there are going to be people who don’t like you and people who love you. and you’re going to be whatever shape, whatever size, whatever color, whatever age you are and you are going to be proud of it and you are going to stand in it. and you are going to end up having a life that is full of mystery and excitement and outrageousness and joy and difficulty. and you are going to be able to withstand being alone, in your own self, by yourself, in the world. and i think you have to make a choice as a woman which life you want…if we really are serious about saving the human species we must take the energy, time and attention you spend fixing your body and direct it toward fixing the world.

i don’t know about you, but i’m putting this up on my bathroom mirror. as i read this i keep thinking about the difference between journeying toward good health and a positive body image and being on a diet. what should our real goal as women be? i know for me it is all too often a number on the scale. a number that represents who i was before i was hurt…before i grew up and before life got so damn complicated. maybe the real purpose of this journey is to redefine strength. to redefine beauty. to create a space for myself where i can feel comfortable…somewhere between a box of thin mints and actually being thin, there has to be a place where girls like me belong. who are never going to be a gym queen and sometimes take a second piece of pie but who also love to hike, do yoga, and swim. who would rather beat the boys on a scrabble board than a soccer pitch. who want to be loved and seen and known as a whole person…not the sum of a few attractive parts.

xoxo.
ellie

In first grade I shoved a rock up my nose. It got stuck. In fourth grade every girl in Grandview, Missouri, got the bright idea to shave only the back of their heads. It was some kind of rebellious fashion statement, and one I rarely admit to doing. In sixth grade I started my period and insisted that it wasn’t normal. I was so persistent that my mother had to take me to the doctor. I refused to believe that my mother, a nurse, knew what she was talking about. In seventh grade I received my first kiss. Ken Willert was the one to give it to me. My friends and I were at Mitch Karsten’s birthday party, girls on one side of the room and boys on the other. The kiss was strategically planned, not romantic or spontaneous in any way, and I refused to kiss him until I found my Dr. Pepper Chap Stick. I had to make sure my lips were soft after all. Two years ago I dated a guy named Ben. I was bored, and he was cute, until he turned in to a stalker. I had mentioned that I liked Batman, and one day I came home to find him in my apartment in nothing but a child sized Batman cape. I sent him home. Three weeks ago,I accidentally found out that the father of my son is having a baby. This was quite a shock to me because he had been trying to get back together with me for months. He would tell me how sorry he was for things that happened in the past, tell me he loves me, and wants nothing more than to have his family back. I knew that even though there were still feelings on both people’s parts, I couldn’t ever go back to that relationship. I didn’t want to be with the father of my child, but he should damn well be miserable and pine over me. I figured that he deserved it after everything that he had done. I spent the rest of the night throwing myself a pity party and avoiding his text messages and calls. Unfortunately when I was ready to talk the only thing that could come out of my mouth, after some alcoholic beverages, was, “I hope your baby has five legs.”

I thought about how immature that phrase was for about a week, and then I realized something. It is ok to do things I regret. I’m not saying I should go out and purposely do things that are stupid, but all of my experiences have taught me something. For example, I now know that rocks do not belong in body cavities, that being a woman is a normal biological thing, and I have learned that clippers should only be used on members of the male species. Spontaneous kisses that hold feeling and meaning are the best, and I no longer worry about having Chap Stick. I figure I am a little old for Dr. Pepper flavor and so have now matured to Tropical Punch Kool-Aid. Dating someone because I am bored never goes anywhere and is a waste of time. Maturing enough to consider someone else’s feelings is something that I am glad to have learned. I can now just tell someone that it isn’t working out rather than hoping that he gets my subtle cues and disappears. Even though I still do not like the idea of my son’s father having another child, a baby with five legs just wouldn’t be a good thing.

Learning to let things go is not an easy task, and I have not mastered it by any means. I am positive that I will have more moments that I am not proud of, and I welcome them. I figure it is how I handle myself during and after them that shapes who I am. I can only hope that as I age and mature that I live a life without regret and have many stories to tell.

i’d like to thank this week’s contributer for such an incredible essay! for more information on the katie girl project or how to submit a piece, click here.

i am a katie girl because i finally fit comfortably in the “gray”, at least for the time being. for a long time i was in the “black”, and then i had a short stint of “white”; now i am comfortable having absolutely no definition other than “gray”.

i grew up in a seemingly normal family, but found myself in trouble – especially regarding boys. it started with my first kiss at summer camp at the age of 14, and my life got deeper and deeper into the “black”, solidified with my first sexual partner at the age of 16. august 10th, in a hotel room. i think his name was paul. after that, it was “black” nearly every weekend…. i can’t remember their names, where they were from, or anything about them. i loved the gratification, but shortly after would feel intense remorse and depression. they didn’t love me. they probably didn’t even like me. you might say that my “black” was a black hole of empty fulfillment. despite concerned warnings from family and friends, i turned my back. i was too good, i was in too much control. i just didn’t care.

then one cold and lonely night I hit the ultimate bottom of my “black”. i was sick of living. what’s the purpose? there was a voice on the other end of the phone, relaying a message of hope and love; a message of “white” purity and cleanliness. (no, he wasn’t a jehovah witness.) in essence, he was my “white knight”, my savior. he led me to believe in the goodness of people, in the goodness of myself. and after many months, i finally realized i could love myself. i could love him. we had the utmost pure and wonderful relationship, abstaining from drinking, smoking, even sex. i climbed up on my soapbox and denounced family and friends, the ones who tried to save me from the “black”. now they were the ones who needed “saving” from their lives of sin. i burned bridges with my moral preaching and was happy knowing i was better than everyone else. i didn’t need anyone except my white knight.

but the higher you are, the harder you fall. it was bound to happen. i was left in pieces like a broken stained glass window…. once black, and painted over white. Now completely indistinguishable. who am i? where do i belong? i had driven away nearly every friend and family member who remotely cared…. if not by my “black” behavior, than by my “white” condescending preaching. thankfully there were a few other “katie girls” who understood the confusing rollercoaster of “creating yourself” who stuck by my side and were quick to forgive and forget. i love them tremendously and am extremely thankful to have them in my life!

my favorite quote of all time is, “life is not about finding yourself; life is about creating yourself.”

i am 23 and finally starting to realize that i am OKAY in the “grey”. in fact, this is where i belong. i’m neither “black” nor “white”. i am not a sexual deviant or a godsend that lives strictly by the bible’s teachings. i am me. and I have finally “created myself”. i am a “katie girl” who is surrounded by people who love me – grey and all.

the blog moderator would like to offer her special thanks to the author of this piece, a lifelong friend of whom i couldn’t be prouder. i love you, girl.