What's a Girl Gotta Do?

by Holly Bourne

  “Like a patriarchal butterfly effect?” Amber said.

  I pointed at her. “Yes! Exactly that! Well I was thinking of it more like a pyramid. A big feminism pyramid. Close your eyes and picture a pyramid now.” I closed mine, opened them, and saw that Evie was using this moment to grab a cracker. “Oi, Evie, close your eyes!”

  “Okay okay, I’m closing them…” she said, the cracker hanging out of her mouth.

  “Now picture a pyramid… Are you…?”

  “Yes,” she snapped. “I’m picturing a ruddy pyramid. With you impaled on the top.”

  Amber snorted with laughter with her eyes closed.

  I chose to ignore them both. “Now, under the tip of the pyramid is a huge amount of pyramid underbelly, am I right? There’s the bottom layer of bricks, and the layer of bricks above that, all building to a point.”

  Amber opened her eyes. “Lottie, I love you. And I know you’re smarter than me. But I do know what a pyramid looks like.”

  “It’s more dramatic this way,” I wailed.

  Evie opened her eyes too. “Just let her get on with it. It’s quicker.”

  I nodded gratefully. “Well just imagine all the very worst stuff that happens to women is at the top of the pyramid. Like what we think happened to Megan. Like honour killing and FGM and women dying in illegal abortions, and worldwide structural inequality… I know it’s difficult to measure harm, but still these awful things…if they’re at the tip of the pyramid – what’s propping it up? And the more I thought about it, the more I realized it’s being propped up by layers and layers of other smaller, ‘silly’ sexism! These layers of bricks – seemingly minor bricks, like slut-shaming a girl in a short skirt, or, umm, even rap music with misogynistic lyrics… You may think that tackling them isn’t as ‘worthwhile’ as the truly terrible things. That maybe it’s minor, or a pointless waste of energy. But, actually, I think it’s all these tiny bits of wrong that are building the structure that allows the really bad stuff to happen.” I took yet another breath, knowing I was only half making sense. “SO, the plan for my project is this. For one month, I will challenge EVERYTHING. I think if I can show people just how much sexism there is, it will help recruit others to join our cause. And that could mean we achieve more, quicker, and maybe we start to stop bad things happening as a brilliant side-effect.”

  Both of them were quiet for a moment.

  “Well…?” I asked.

  “Oh, you’re finished?” Evie asked. “I was just checking.”

  “Yes, I’m finished! But you have to help me shape it.”

  Amber dragged her college bag over, digging stuff out. “This requires art supplies.” She pulled out her sketchpad and loads of coloured pens. “I think you need some rules.” She pulled off the top of a marker. “Like I said in the cafeteria, you need to make this more concrete. So what counts as something sexist that you need to object to?”

  I thought about it, which required an actual scratching of my head. “Well, I want it to be about equality, so I’m going to holler about sexist stuff that impacts boys too…”

  Evie pushed herself up on the bed, watching as Amber wrote it down.

  Rule no. 1 – Call out anything you see that is unfair or unequal to one gender

  “Yeah, that’s good,” she said. “God, though. You’re going to be exploding all over the place. You’re going to have, like, incurable feminism hiccups.”

  I grinned. “That’s the point…” I trailed off and frowned. “Will I ever have time to sleep?”

  “I know,” Amber said. “How about you only have to call something out once? So you’re not going over the same stuff again and again?”

  “Great idea.” I grabbed her pen and wrote it down.

  Rule no. 2 – Don’t call out the same thing twice, so you can sleep and breathe

  Evie took the pen and looked at me. “You need to keep it funny though,” she said seriously. “I mean it. This could very quickly look like one big whinging feminist rant. People will turn off to that.”

  I crossed my arms. “They shouldn’t…”

  “But they will.” Amber took Evie’s side. “You know they will.”

  “Okay,” I conceded. And Evie wrote down:

  Rule no. 3 – Always try to keep it funny

  I scratched my head again. “How do I make this funny?”

  We were all quiet for a second.

  Evie said, with her hand up, “How about you get a giant clown horn, and you honk it whenever you see anything?”

  Amber’s face lit up. “Oooh, one of those brass ones, with a long neck and a black spongy ball?”

  Evie nodded. “Yeah, those ones.”

  “You have good taste in horns.”

  “Why thank you.”

  I nodded. “I like it. And I can yell, ‘I’VE GOT THE HORN’ too.”

  “YES!” And we all high-fived.

  “And you need merch,” Amber suggested. “Make this brandable, darling.”

  “Yes, yes and yes. I’ve already asked Megan if she’ll help with arty stuff. I thought it was a good way to include her more and get to know her better.”

  “That will be great! She’s so good at graphics.”

  Evie stretched her arms behind her head, until there was a crack. “Are you just going to focus on gender specifically?” she asked. “Or are you going to try and point out all the different ways you can get double-pooed-on if you’re a girl? Like if you’re not white? Or straight?”

  I pointed at her. “Ten points to Hufflepuff! I HAVE been thinking about that. A lot. And it’s HARD. I mean, there are so many different crappy reasons girls get pooed on and they’re all so important…but I guess I don’t feel I can speak for everyone’s individual experiences, you know? So, what I’m hoping is, this campaign will prompt other people to do their own campaigns, highlighting things from their experience, and together we can all sew a beautiful duvet made of our different voices and drape it over the world and say, ‘LOOK AT THIS FUCKING DUVET, THE WORLD NEEDS TO CHANGE – PRONTO!’”

  “I think you mean quilt,” Amber pointed out. “Not duvet.”

  I flipped her the finger.

  “I’m all for this,” Evie said. “Maybe I’ll start honking a horn whenever anyone misuses the term OCD to describe being tidy, or calls someone mental or a psycho bitch just because they’re a female with perfectly valid emotions.”

  “YES! See, this duvet is already taking shape.”

  Evie saluted. Then she said what I’d been stuck on all day. “You need a good name for this, Lottie. Something catchy.”

  “I’ve been trying all day but I can’t think of one.”

  “Oooh, I know!” Amber’s hand shot up, she was so excited by her own idea. “Oh my God, it’s good, guys. You’re going to love me. You’re going to WORSHIP me.”

  “What? What is it?”

  She paused, for added drama. “How about…The Vagilante? Like a vigilante, but with a big honking vagina?”

  I stood up. “I LOVE IT.”

  She waved her hand. “Wait, I’m not finished. Seriously, I think I may be a genius. I think the main reason I was born was for this very moment. I feel overwhelmed by myself, I—”

  “Amber,” both Evie and I warned. “Get on with it.”

  “Okay okay. Well, the tagline should be… Letting the cat lady out of the bag.”

  I launched myself at her, knocking over my bedside table holding all the remaining chocolate.

  “That’s such a great idea! Oh my God, I love it. I LOVE YOU!” I hugged her again, and then threw my head back to the sky and yelled, “KYLE, CAN YOU HEAR ME OVER THERE IN AMERICA? I’M STEALING YOUR AMAZING GINGER GIRLFRIEND AND HER GINGER BRAIN OF BRILLIANCE.”

  Amber laughed from underneath me, but also put a lot of physical effort into trying to get me off.

  “Oi, Lottie, stop planking on me.”

  “Never! This is how I show my appreciation.” I climbed further on top of her.

  “Evie, help!
”

  And, Evie, who was basically becoming the mum of us, came over and pulled me off. We lay in a heap, our heads all together, laughing ourselves out.

  Evie rolled over.

  “You seem much happier than yesterday,” she said. “I’m glad.”

  Yesterday seemed like a lifetime ago. The helplessness I felt, the anger…it had all gone now. Maybe all you needed in life was the belief you could change things. Somehow. Some way.

  We plotted and planned, until Dad came up and told me I had to do my homework. “Two week nights seeing your friends in a row, Lottie. Come on.” Like I wasn’t almost eighteen or anything. But, in that time, we’d decided to try and recruit someone from Evie’s film class to get involved. We planned to propose it as the new FemSoc campaign in the next meeting, hoping they’d be behind it, as we’d technically be highlighting every other injustice put forward for a campaign in this one. And we gave ourselves two weeks before it started – to get everything sorted. When we’d pulled out the calendar I’d bitten my lip. I hadn’t heard back from Cambridge yet. And if I got an interview, it would be worryingly near the month of the Vagilante Project.

  I almost didn’t want to think about it…

  Would I keep up the project during the interview?

  I’d have to.

  My tummy flipped on itself, like it had been scoured down the middle. I mean, surely, if I had to point out sexism, it wouldn’t be appreciated? But if I didn’t get in, what if Mum and Dad were right, and not going to Cambridge messed up my chances of climbing the political ladder so I could really change things?

  Would not speaking up count as flicking the switch?

  Slowly, I lowered my head onto the desk.

  ten

  Evie found me holed up in the library two days later.

  “Lottie,” she whispered so loudly it could hardly be called a whisper. “I have exciting but not perfect news.”

  About ten annoyed-looking heads spun around to glare. I was in the silent area, cooped up in one of the weird little cubicles they have, trying to make sense of my economics coursework.

  I pointed to the door, Evie nodded, and we both walked out. She was dancing around on her feet even more so than usual – she was obviously excited about something. It’s weird she’s so curvy, considering how many calories she burns every day with nervous energy. But, as she’d said before, “Even when I was sectioned because they’d misdiagnosed me with an eating disorder, I still had these bloody boobs.”

  The ordinary section of the library seemed extra-noisy after being holed up in silentland for so long. My ears adjusted to the buzzing of students – chatting, comparing homework answers, showing each other videos on their phones.

  “What is it, O excitable one?” I asked. “You’re making me want to Cossack dance.”

  “I’ve found someone to film your project,” she said. “They want to meet you later today.”

  “You have?! Oh my God, that’s amazing. Maybe we SHOULD do some Cossack dancing!” I was just in the process of bending down, ready to fly my legs out, when Evie pulled me up again.

  “Wait. There’s a catch.”

  “Oh.” I readjusted my skirt. It was a tight lacy pencil one – I’m not sure how I would’ve managed to Cossack in it. “What is it?”

  “There’s no nice way of saying this…”

  “Evie!”

  “Okay. Well, he’s an arsehole.”

  “Woah, really?” I stood back with the shock of hearing Evie swear. “If you’re calling him an arsehole, he must really be an arsehole.”

  She nodded, her blonde hair whooshing around her face. “His name’s Will and he really is. Oli and I have asked everyone, but we’ve got this coursework coming up so people are pretty busy. Will’s up for it though. And he’s a good film-maker. He’s made a few shorts already.”

  “How is he an arsehole?”

  “Well…umm…”

  “Evie, spit it out.”

  “Well, he’s quite chauvinistic, I think…”

  “What? Seriously?”

  She nodded again. “He’s VERY arrogant. I think he gets off on starting debates… Oli says he’s all right, but I don’t like him. And I don’t think you will. I’m always getting into arguments with him in class because he says stuff like male directors are better than female directors.”

  I felt that hot itching feeling of anger spread through my face and tighten my jaw.

  “Why the heck is he interested in helping me then?” I asked, pushing my hair off my face. “Does he just want to bait me?”

  “I’ve already asked him that, and he promised me no.” She smiled. “I asked him that a lot.”

  “I don’t get it then. Why does he want to do it?”

  She shrugged. “He said he genuinely wants to do it as, like, documentary practice. He wants to be the next Werner Herzog, and says he needs experience interviewing people doing stuff he doesn’t agree with.”

  “I have no idea who you’re talking about…Herzee Whatnow? Hang on…doesn’t agree with? So he doesn’t agree with, like, feminism?”

  Evie shook her head sadly. “Nope.”

  I pushed more hair back. “Holy moly, is there no one else?”

  “Did you just say ‘holy moly’? Even I don’t say holy moly.”

  “This is definitely a holy moly kind of moment.”

  “Why don’t you just meet him?” She stepped to one side to let a group of students past. “See how you feel then?”

  eleven

  I instantly fancied Will.

  He was everything a cocky wannabe film director should be. Big black-framed glasses, a slightly-oversized stripy jumper with tighter jeans, the kind of mouth that stayed in a permanent superior type of smirk with a tiny beard thing in the middle of his chin. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed him around the college campus. Because he was definitely the sort of boy I instantly fancy.

  Though, to be fair, I instantly fancy lots of people.

  It still surprised me though, as I’d spent the whole walk there already arguing with him in my head – fuelled by Evie. He had two chairs in the college canteen, leaning back in one, his feet up on the other – showing off some posh leather shoes. A coffee from the Italian deli down the road perched in front of him, like the college’s instant coffee machine wasn’t good enough. Alongside it sat some posh ciabatta bread, with tiny plastic pots of oil and balsamic vinegar. I mean, what?

  He raised his eyebrows when I walked over.

  “Lottie, I presume?” he said.

  I mean who even talks like that? So I said: “Who even talks like that?”

  Another raise of his eyebrows. He picked up his coffee cup and slurped it, watching me as I pulled up a chair across from him.

  “So, Evie said you want to help me with my project?” I asked, copying his body language. He leaned further back in his chair, crossing his arms, so I mirrored him.

  “Yeah, it seems interesting enough.” He said it like it was the most boring idea in the world.

  “Don’t wet yourself with excitement.”

  He didn’t even smile, just smirked.

  “I never do.”

  “I can imagine.”

  I don’t like it when people act all superior with me. I went to a private school on a scholarship; it happened there a lot. I don’t like it more when I find myself fancying them. But I’d learned to never let anyone think they were better than me. Because, usually, just the fact they’re thinking it means they’re not. So I decided to disarm him. I reached out, ripped a piece of bread off, splashed it in the vinegar and ate it.

  His cocky eyebrows shot up instantly in shock. Ha, I thought, you weren’t expecting that.

  “Did you just eat my food?” he asked, in genuine disbelief.

  I shrugged. “What seventeen-year-old brings oil and vinegar dipping pots into college?” I asked. “Now, are you going to help or not?”

  His face – ha! – his face. He really, truly, didn’t know what to
do.

  “You can’t just go around taking people’s food.”

  “Yes, well. The whole point of this project is me pointing out all the things people shouldn’t really be able to go around doing, but they do them anyway.”

  He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

  “So…” I breezed on. “Evie tells me you’re not really a feminist?”

  His smirk returned instantly. “I’m an equalitist.” He said it so smugly that his attractiveness nosedived by at least ten points.

  “It’s the same thing,” I argued.

  “Well, I prefer to use the word equalitist.” His lip was curling, and I shook my head in disbelief.

  “I mean, millions of women all over the world are being oppressed, tortured, undermined and massacred, and you’re more worried about branding?”

  “Well if that’s the case, why are you so het up about using the word ‘feminist’?”

  “BECAUSE…” My fists were clenched. “Because, yes, equality for everyone is important but using the word ‘feminist’ makes it pretty darn clear that gender is a main offender in the universe-is-bullshit Olympics. The word feminism acknowledges that, since the dawn of time, society historically split humans into two categories – male and female – and one has uncontrollably shat on the other…”

  Will looked bored by my rant – actually bored. He stopped me with his hand, and I was so stunned by the rudeness that I let him.

  “Since the dawn of time?” He smirked. “So, were, like, male dinosaurs oppressing female dinosaurs?”

  I threw my hands up. “Oh, by all means, ignore everything important I just said and focus on the one tiny thing that wasn’t perfect. Because that’s constructive.”

  “I was just joking.”

  “Yeah, well, I was just leaving. The last thing I need right now is help from someone like you.” I stood up.