#GirlsShitToo

Discontinuing Girls Shit Too

Dallas Delaney @DallasDelaney

Hey guys. #GirlsShitToo is coming to an end. School principal does not approve.

Dallas Delaney @DallasDelaney

He says talking about shit is elementary and girls cussing is vulgar. "Boys will be boys. Ladies need to act like ladies." –Mr. Runsberger

Lydia Lopez @dancingYogi32

but @DallasDelaney your principal can't control what you do outside of school.

Dallas Delaney @DallasDelaney

.@dancingYogi32 Well, I was doing this for a grade. Without that, where's the motivation?

Jade A. @JadeAnderson

.@DallasDelaney shame on you. Your viewers and purpose should serve as far more motivation than a grade. I thought you cared about women.

I received many tweets in response to the discontinuation of my project that night, and one thing was clear: my decision had pissed off my viewers.

After reading their responses, I felt really conflicted. I mean, yeah, #GirlsShitToo had started for a grade. But had it turned into something more? Did I care about it enough to keep at it, in spite of the obstacles? I mean, Runsberger really couldn't control the projects I did outside of school. Even if I started writing a traditional senior paper to appease him, I could still do Girls Shit Too as a personal project. I had been having fun with it, but Runsberger had made me feel like an immature attention-seeking tween. Would the Hearsts view me the same way? Would they see my name attached to this "vulgar" and "offensive" and "unimportant" project and automatically reject my scholarship application? Would they think it offered nothing of value? Would it damage my reputation? I kept thinking about how Valerie had taken such a safe route when she'd chosen to do her project on poverty and hunger. I had taken a risky route. My project was about shit. Literally. Maybe I did need to abandon it.

And how much further would Runsberger go to punish me if I didn't fully agree to his terms? Finding out didn't seem worth the punishment.

So the next morning, Mom drove me to school, and we both went into Runsberger's office together.

"Dallas has decided to agree to your terms," Mom said when I wouldn't talk.

Runsberger smiled. "Then I welcome you back to school, young lady."

I gave him my smirkiest thanks face and walked out, not bothering to say bye to Mom or even to look at her.

The rest of the school day sucked. People kept congratulating me and questioning me about my suspension, but I just wanted to scream out about the unfairness of it all.

Then I saw Dennis, who had tattled on me. "Where'd you go to for the past few days, Delaney? Heard you can't vlog about girls stealing stuff that should belong to guys anymore. Sucks for you!" He made a blowjob gesture when he said "sucks"; who knows why? Maybe he thought he was being clever? It disgusted me and made me want to tear his limbs off even more than I had the moment before, but I clenched my fists and stalked away. And as much as I liked to imagine myself as a tearer-offer of limbs, I'd never actually torn any limbs.

In English, Adree pissed me off more than I already was when she said, "Are you really stopping your project?" She didn't say it in a nice way; she said it in an "I can't believe you" kind of way.

After class, Ms. Brooks told me to stay. When everyone was gone, she asked, "How are you?"

"I'm trying to figure out a topic for my paper, I guess. At least Runsberger and I 'compromised.' More like he blackmailed me."

"I'm sorry, Dallas, I feel like I've failed you."

"I feel like I've failed you."

"You haven't. I knew that there would be road bumps. Deconstructing the patriarchy isn't easy."

Maybe it was because I was pissed off, but I told her, "Maybe he's right."

Her face donned a look of confusion. "Who?"

"Runsberger. About how students need to know how to persuade people using the traditional Aristotelian structure. I mean, I know you want to have more compromise and collaboration and cooperation, but my mom chose to compromise with him, and where did that get me?"

Ms. Brooks sighed. "Dallas, Aristotle was a great philosopher and rhetorician, but he was also a great sexist. He believed women were morally inferior to men. He believed anyone could be persuaded with words, and so he taught men to use their words as weapons in their conquests. How can the world get better if we're all on conquests?"

"Maybe women need to be better at conquesting," I told her. Like my mom. She needs to get better. "Maybe we're inferior because we don't force people to see things the way we want them to be seen." That's what my project was originally about: appropriating masculinity. Mr. Runsberger had won by dominance; maybe dominance was something women needed to appropriate, to take for themselves. Why were men encouraged to be dominant while women weren't? If we kept letting them be dominant, we would be forever submissive. We would forever submit to their wills, like I was submitting to Runsberger's will by ending my project. 

Ms. Brooks looked disappointed, and I couldn't tell if she was disappointed in me or herself. She didn't respond to what I'd said.

So I fake smiled and told her, "I gotta go. See you tomorrow." Then I left.

When I finally got home from my hellish day at school, I noticed several emails in my inbox. Journalists from various news sources were asking me to comment on stories they were writing, stories about my project. And these news stories weren't just in SoCal; they were all over Cali, plus in Oregon and Washington. I shouldn't have been surprised. My tweet about Runsberger had been retweeted more than 3700 times, which was unusual. Not knowing whether I should feel elated or scared, I decided to call the number for the journalist from LA. I answered a few of her questions, imagining what would happen from there.

But that night was Woeful Wednesday, and Adree posted her vlog at 9:52 P.M, halting my imagination.