#GirlsShitToo

Mediocre Feminism

Wednesday morning, Adree and I started getting all these tweets linking us to some video, so I clicked on hyperlink, which brought me to a televised talk show interview with Melcie Tate, a popular actress and feminist/activist who I loved. The beginning of the video talked about her work campaigning to prevent girls from becoming child brides both inside and outside the U.S., but at the end they asked her if she'd heard of Girls Shit Too and Embrace Femininity. She nodded, and they asked her what she thought of us and whether she found us brave.

"Brave?" she scoffed. "I wouldn't call it brave. Many teenagers these days are seeking online fame with no real sense of the future. I don't know much about those movements—but they certainly seem to be promoting a very tween brand of feminism. Not that that's necessarily bad—except it does seem to distract the world from issues of real concern, especially when the media and its consumers are helping."

"So you don't think these girls are the activists of the future?"

"The problem with our modern world is we confuse activism with slacktivism. Making vlogs about nail polish? How much does that help with sex inequality? But we must also remember: these are high schoolers who don't know much about the real world yet."

Right when I finished watching it, I didn't even know how to react. It felt like Melcie had sliced open my abdomen and pulled out my digestive organs. My will to put them back in and continue my journey didn't exist. All I was thinking about was how maybe we were just stupid high schoolers who didn't know anything about the real world, how our movements were just ridiculous projects. I didn't know why I'd ever thought they were becoming something more.

I wanted to finish the project and be done with it. All I needed was the grade.

And right then, I didn't think my "How I Plan to Change the World" essay would work at all. I needed to come up with another plan for how I wanted to change the world, and I needed to put some distance between myself and my tween slacktivism project, so I might have a shot at the Emily Hearst Scholarship. It seemed out of my reach at that point, though. Valerie would probably get it, and I should feel happy for her; she was one of my new best friends, after all.

In English that day, Ms. Brooks asked me if I wanted to talk about it, and I told her no.

Adree wasn't in class, and then she didn't release a vlog that night. I couldn't blame her; I didn't have it in me to even think about Girls Shit Too.

* * *

Friday, I stood in front of Emily Hearst's memorial fountain, watching water run down the six-foot-high sandstone block into the small pond below. It seemed now like the scholarship in her name would never be mine. I wondered what she'd been like, and if she would've viewed my project as important, or as a case of slacktivism. Adree still hadn't released a vlog, and she'd been distant in English class.

Even though I didn't want to be part of our competition anymore, I still wanted to one-up her. So I actually gave my viewers something to work with instead of leaving them hanging:

Dallas Delaney @DallasDelaney

Taking the week off from #GirlsShitToo. Need some time to reflect on my goals. Peace.

Adree

Fri, Mar 4, 7:04 PM

Adree

I saw your tweet.

Dallas

Yep. I don't feel like posting anything this week. Just like you.