Une Femme Libre

First and foremost, girls want to have fun. We want to be able to go to parties in our shortest and skimpiest dresses or in our flowing dresses without being called whorish or prudish. We want to eat to our hearts content. We definitely want a lot of money (and should be willing to work for it ). We want to be able to have a drink without worrying if someone might have drugged our drink while we went to use the restroom. We want to be able to leave parties late at night without needing to have male friends escort us back home. We don’t want to have to say ‘I have a boyfriend,’ before that boy finally releases his grip. Isn’t it ridiculous that that boy respects somebody else who he is not even a hundred percent sure exists and not someone who is standing right in front of him and clearly looks and sounds uncomfortable?  For goodness’ sake, girls want to be comfortable in their own skin. We do not care if you prefer us with or without our makeup on. We do not want to feel like we ...

  A lot of people that know me know that I don’t like math and so it comes as no surprise to anyone when I'm not enthusiastic in class when the topic of the day is 'Statistics' and for some reason, we are finding the probability that a red ball is picked first and not a blue one all in the name of mathematics. However, there is a particular kind of 'Statistics' I have been concerned about for a while and that is the statistics of people that experience sexual assault during their lifetime, on the average. To you, this topic may be getting old but this is the reality of so many people around the world before they even turn eighteen. It seems as though these sort of experiences have become a ‘rite of passage’ for many women and instead of digging for the roots of why and how this has come to be the reality of far too many women, society focuses its energy on trying to 'protect' us by giving us night time curfews, uploading self-defense videos on YouTube, and r...

"History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again." -Maya Angelou Mathilde CRETIER _ Illustrations for the Virginie agency I think of these women a lot. Some nights I end up tossing and turning for at least an hour thinking about these women. ‘Would it be my turn soon?’ I ask myself, as I try to shove the gruesome thoughts away.  Pinterest

Sometimes, if not most of the time, it can get pretty irritating to watch video vixens act like brainless toys behind both male and female artistes. They are as plentiful and as easily disposable as the confetti sprinkled everywhere when the piñata is struck by swarms of children during a five year old's birthday party. Eventually one has to change the channel to avoid getting sick. This objectification of women is so blatant and pervasive that it has become a normal phenomenon of everyday life. It even leads women to become so preoccupied with their physical appearances and sexual value to others.   Women's bodies, body parts, or sexual functions are isolated from their whole and complex beings and treated as objects simply to be looked at, coveted or touched. I used to think that only women who dressed as 'whorish' as video vixens were the ones who could be prey to such treatment. Alas, my eyes opened when someone sent me a text message that 'Mr. Man' (who...

About two years ago I attended a week-long summer camp and became friends with this boy I would like to call 'Mr. Hilarious.' He seemed to be very popular with people and people seemed to swarm around him too.     About two days to the end of that year's camp, we had movie night and I happened to be sitting beside 'Mr. Hilarious.' I sensed that there was something bothering him or something that he needed to get off his chest so I wasn't too surprised when he said he had something to tell me. My eye balls were already set in motion to be rolled before he blurted out, 'I like you.' Calmly, I turned to him and asked him why he liked me seeing as we had only known each other for about five days. To my greatest annoyance, Mr. Hilarious cheekily said,' Because you are not like other girls.' At that point, I couldn't help but roll my eyes and think to myself, 'How many other girls has he told this to.' Then 'Mr. Hilarious' went on...