To all my fellow women,
Here’s a few things I wish I had known on my first day of college. I’ve grown up a lot since I was 18 years old, but not without making many mistakes along the way. As women continue to be attacked from all sides, it’s important to know the fundamentals about ourselves, including our worth, our voices and the need to support and be supported. I hope this reaches someone who needs it.
- Show up and show out, especially if you’re the only woman in a male-dominant profession. As uncomfortable as it may seem, everyone’s watching you. Many of them have underestimated you or have overlooked you entirely. Prove to them women belong in every field.
- Don’t ever let someone push you around because they think they can, not a man or woman. There’s this common belief system that women are too submissive to stand up for themselves. Prove them wrong. You deserve respect and equal treatment.
- Forget the romance. Invest in a positive, healthy and intimate relationship with yourself. I can write a thesis about how traditional marriage, as a gender-biased institutions, has tainted women’s self-worth outside of romance, but I’ll save that for later. Romance yourself, sis.
- Gender roles are lame. Be who you want to be and look how you want to look. Don’t ever let a man or woman police your body and tell you what you should or shouldn’t wear.
- Beauty standards are only a materialistic and capitalist approach to stealing more money from the public. You’re beautiful with or without it. If you don’t think so, learn to think so if you can help it. Remember, romance yourself.
- People who make you feel bad about yourself, your interests or who you are need to be ousted from your inner circle. Your friends should make an effort to romance you too. Love and affection isn’t romantically exclusive.
- See through people. There are many people out there focused solely on themselves, men and women both. It’s easy to perceive our fellow woman as competition; don’t let a man get in the way of sisterhood.
- Go to parties, but not without your girls and your grades. Remember to stay home and study. You can catch the next party. If you do go to a party, always remember to take your girls with you. Keep up with each other, and don’t let one wander off for too long or disappear. Never leave a friend behind.
- You are worthy of more than just a catcall, a smack on the butt, or a cheap compliment. Tell them that.
- Be a bitch. Say no. Your voice matters. Say it. Then say it louder.
- If she’s a woman now, she needs your support now more than ever. Trans women experience more accounts of gender violence than cis women. Love and protect all women.
- Victim-blaming is an oppressive, patriarchal tool to endorse hate against women. Women’s stories are real. Don’t let society tell you we’re all liars. Statistically, most women are telling the truth. It’s never their fault, and if it’s happened to you, it’s not your fault either. I stand by her. I stand by you.
- If you ever need to talk to someone, the ETSU counseling center is by no means a stigma against your mental stability. Everyone should seek counseling, in my opinion. To be a woman is stressful enough sometimes, and you deserve to be heard, loved and respected.
Yours and with love sincerely,
Jessica Dunker
