(no subject)
I realized tonight that I can recall the exact moment I became a feminist. I was in 5th grade, trying out for Odyssey of the Mind (a gifted after-school program) and I came up with an effortless solution to their problem. The other parents accused me of cheating because I 100% solved the problem when most of their boys did not. When the judges clarified that I didn't break the rules, several insisted my *dad* must have come up with the solution for me. No one hassled the one boy who also scored 100%. It suddenly occurred to me that it was okay with them for a boy to beat their son at this (especially since he used a similar solution to the problem), but not okay for a girl to score so much better with something their sons didn't imagine. It was just something about the way they fussed about me getting in even though I clearly owned the competition.