by Laura Lane
The wolf stopped in his tracks. Rosa didn’t wait to see what he would do. She turned around and hustled toward Abuela’s house.
She questioned whether she should have said anything to him at all. What if he had a weapon or really sharp teeth? Sometimes wolfcallers were dangerous and, in some cases, they had rabies.
When she finally peeked behind her shoulder, the wolf was gone. Wow! Guess monologues work after all, she thought.
However, just to be safe, she did what any young woman does when they feel uncomfortable: she sent a location pigeon to her best friend Cleo to tell her where she was. Location pigeons were great when you were meeting up with friends to see a concert in the forest or when you were being stalked by a canine.
Soon Rosa had arrived at Abuela’s.
She knocked on the door and waited, but Abuela didn’t answer. Rosa tried the door, and to her surprise, it was unlocked.
“Hola, Abuela! It’s Rosa!” she yelled. “I brought you treats and snacks.”
“In here, mija,” said Abuela. But it didn’t sound like Abuela at all. Her voice sounded raspy and ragged, like a pipe-a-day ogre. Poor Abuela, thought Rosa, she must be really sick.
Rosa reached Abuela’s room at the back of the house and pushed open the door. There was her Abuela, curled up in bed reading a book. But something looked off.
“My, what big ears you have, Abuela,” said Rosa.
“All the better to hear you with.”
“My, what big eyes you have.”
“All the better to see you with.”
“My, what a big mouth you have.”
“Okay, that’s enough!” said her abuela. “It’s not very nice of you to comment on my big eyes, ears, and mouth. Ear cartilage stretches with age, my new reading glasses magnify my eyes, and I got new dentures.”
“Sorry,” said Rosa. “I barely recognized you with those new glasses. They look great!”
“So tell me, how was your walk, mija?”
“To be honest, not so good,” said Rosa as she climbed into bed with her sage and all-knowing abuela. “There was this wolfcaller who was following me and he wouldn’t leave me alone.”
Rosa explained what happened on the walk over.
“You know,” said Abuela, “at my age, I still get wolfcalled, too.”
Rosa didn’t find this too surprising. After all, women of all ages, shapes, and sizes get wolfcalled.
“I wish I had wise words for you, but the fact is, even among my abuela amigas, there’s no true consensus on how to deal with wolfcallers. All of my amigas have different strategies. At the end of the day, it’s situational. If you don’t do anything, it doesn’t feel very empowering, but if you fight back, there’s the risk of danger. I’m proud of how you handled that piece of troll garbage and sad excuse for a wolf. Now, may I have one of your mother’s delicious pan dulce?”
They spent the next hour eating sweets and fantasizing about how they wished they could respond to wolfcallers. Abuela wished she could smack them across the face, while Rosa dreamed of presenting a scroll slideshow on why wolfcalling makes women feel unsafe.
“I’m really glad you’re okay,” said Rosa to Abuela. “I had this strange fear the wolf was a home-invading serial killer who would follow me back here and eat you, and then try to eat me.”
“Well, it’s just me,” said Abuela. “Maybe that’s a different wolf, in a different, even darker, stranger tale.”
Meanwhile, across town, the wolf was still wolfcalling other women who were out for a stroll. That is, until his own grandma spotted him while she was out getting bread. As he made kissing sounds and screamed at a young woman: “Baby, I’d hit that—” his grandma stuck out her giant sourdough loaf and tripped him. As he lay on the sidewalk, she lectured her grandwolfson on male aggression and toxic masculinity.
And he never wolfcalled again.
THE END
RAPUNZEL’S ARMPITS
NCE UPON A TIME…
There lived an independent and fearless young woman in a tall tower with only one way up and one way down: by climbing her long silky locks of hair. As a baby, she had been taken from her parents by a witch after her father was caught stealing vegetables from the witch’s garden for his then-pregnant wife. The witch believed this had been a classic case of toxic masculinity—a man thinking he could take whatever he wanted without asking.
The witch named the baby after one of the stolen vegetables, rapunzel. This may sound like a weird name but it was way better than her other choice, broccolini. Wanting to keep Rapunzel as protected from a male-dominated society as possible, the witch locked her in a tower with no way to escape. She had Rapunzel grow her hair as long as the tower, so when the witch wanted to do some light parenting, Rapunzel would throw down her hair, and the witch would climb up.
Climbing hair served two purposes. It taught Rapunzel to screw beauty standards by using her long locks for utilitarian purposes. And it was way easier than moving a ladder back and forth.
“All men want your vegetables,” the witch said to Rapunzel before putting her to sleep each night.
One day, many years later, a man on a horse rode by and watched the witch climb the luxurious hair of the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. And—you guessed it—he was a prince. Once the witch had left and the coast was clear, he approached Rapunzel’s tower and called up to her as the witch had:
“Rapunzel! Rapunzel! Let down your hair, so that I may climb thy flowing stair.”
Rapunzel stuck her head out of the tower window and looked down.
“A prince!” she said. “How did thee find me?”
“From a distance, I saw a woman climb thy silky tresses that shine like the stars,” called the Prince. “May I come up?”
“Are your intentions honorable and your heart gold?” asked Rapunzel.
“Yes, my lady. Oh, how I have longed to meet a beauty such as thee!”
“And by beauty, do you mean the feminine beauty ideal based on heteronormative assumptions that was created to keep women down? Not down from towers, but you know what I mean.”
“Oh, um, of course not. I definitely meant… inner beauty?” said the Prince. “Inner beauty is still okay, right?”
“Indeed it is! I shall let down my hair.”
The Prince was ecstatic as he watched Rapunzel lean back to launch down her locks.
“I can’t wait to get my hands on those soft, silky—holy crap,” said the Prince as he watched Rapunzel toss down a bundle of long, dark, sweaty hair.
“Oh my god,” he said to himself. “That is not head hair. That’s armpit hair.”
The Prince hesitated, unsure of what to do. Because while it’s not normal to climb someone’s head hair, it is unheard of to climb someone’s armpit hair. The Prince hadn’t been this grossed out since a bunch of knights pranked him a few years back by Dutch-ovening his suit of armor.
Sure, he considered himself a feminist, but he still didn’t want to climb armpit hair. He just wasn’t into it. He stared at the pile of coarse hair next to him.
“Is there a problem?” Rapunzel yelled down.
“It’s, um, armpit hair,” replied the Prince. “A little weird, no?”
“Weird?” said Rapunzel. “You don’t think it’s weird I grow out my head hair 165 feet but you think it’s weird I grow out my armpit hair?”
“I guess both are weird.”
“Wrong answer. I can do whatever I want to my body.”
“Right, right, right!” he replied, realizing he had made a mistake. “I didn’t mean bad weird! I just meant I was expecting to climb your head hair, like that crazy witch did.”
“Whoa. That crazy witch is my mom,” said Rapunzel.
“Crap. Sorry!” replied the Prince, fumbling. “Let me start over. I was expecting to climb your head hair, like your mother, who wears all black clothes and a pointy black hat.”
“My head is sore,” said Rapunzel. “Also, I think it looks cool. Women in other kingd
oms grow out their armpit hair all the time.”
The Prince could tell things were not going smoothly. He needed to step up his game if he was going to have a chance with Rapunzel.
“You’re right, I’m coming up!” he said as he took a deep breath. “This is something I am doing.”
He took hold of her armpit hair and began to climb.
“I love women,” he yelled up. “I am against patriarchal views of how a woman should look or how they should wear their hair. I always say, women should get swords!”
The Prince had never before expressed an opinion on women getting weaponry.
The climb was rather long but the view was fantastic. However, halfway up the Prince started to sniff something strange.
“What’s the problem now?” asked Rapunzel.
“Nothing,” said the Prince.
“Your mouth is saying one thing but your face is saying another,” she replied.
“It sorta smells,” he admitted, too overwhelmed by the stench to come up with a kinder response.
“I use organic nontoxic deodorant. The other kind gives you cancer,” Rapunzel retorted, clearly annoyed. “I’ve had enough of corporations run by lords hawking beauty products to ladies that are pumped full of toxic chemicals detrimental to our health.”
“Yes, yes, that is the worst,” stammered the Prince, realizing he was getting deeper and deeper into the dragon house. “I always say, Lords, keep your sulfates to yourself.”
He’d never said that before in his life.
As the Prince got closer to Rapunzel’s balcony, he noticed she was wearing bright red lipstick and a set of lashes.
“Oh,” said the Prince as he climbed. “I wouldn’t have expected someone like you to be wearing makeup.”
“Someone like me?” said Rapunzel.
Uh, oh, thought the Prince. I think I’ve done something wrong again, but I’m not sure what.
“I can do whatever makes me feel good,” said Rapunzel. “Feminists can wear falsies.”
“Yes. I always say that!” said the Prince. “Feminists can wear falsies.” The Prince had no idea what a falsie was.
Finally, the prince climbed into Rapunzel’s tower. Thank goodness, he thought, I don’t want to talk about beauty standards anymore. It’s too complicated.
“Rapunzel! What a lovely turret you have,” he said. “Now if you want to come check out my palace later, we could tie your sheets together, bust you out of here and I could give you a ride back on my horse. But I’m not sure there’s room for, like, all of your body hair.”
He took another look at her armpit hair that wrapped around the room.
“Definitely just your head hair,” he said. “But don’t worry, I have a sword you can use to shave.”
Rapunzel rolled her eyes.
“I’m good,” she said flatly. “You don’t get it. You need to leave. Boy, bye.”
“What?” said the Prince, confused. “I spent forty-five minutes climbing your armpit hair and now I have to leave? I thought we were hitting it off!”
“Newsflash: nobody wants someone to tell them how to look,” said Rapunzel. “The beauty ideal is deeply internalized. Maidens get bombarded with mixed messages about appearance every day. We’re told we are superficial for wanting to self-express through beauty and makeup while at the same time we get judged if we fail to live up to the unattainable standard of femininity. Apparently, there’s no escaping the noble male gaze. Even when you live in a tower. Time for you to go!”
“Wait—before I climb your armpits again, what about leg hair? Is that an option?” asked the Prince, desperately.
“No. I shave my legs.”
“After all of this, you shave your legs?” he said.
“If there is one thing you should have learned today, it’s that it’s my choice,” said Rapunzel. “And judging me for it makes you a part of the problem.”
The Prince began to think about his role in the “noble male gaze” and perpetuating the patriarchy, but then he remembered he was hungry and cared about that more.
“Do you know where they serve a good veggie stew around here?”
“All you men want is our damn vegetables!” shouted Rapunzel as she reached under her gown and tossed down her tower-length pubic hair.
Surprise!
“Climb my bush,” said Rapunzel. “My armpits are sore now.”
And with that, the Prince climbed down Rapunzel’s gloriously long pubes and never returned.
THE END
MULAN’S MOOLA
NCE UPON A TIME…
There lived a courageous and persistent woman named Mulan. At eighteen years old she enlisted in the Chinese Army and disguised herself as a man to fight in place of her aging father. She fought for twelve years without her fellow warriors ever discovering her secret. Mulan mastered the art of upright urination thanks to her invention of the original female funnel.
When Mulan decided to retire after the war, she finally told everyone the truth: she was a woman and their dick jokes weren’t funny. The army was shocked that this decorated war hero was a “chick.” Who knew women could fight just as well as men and look good with short hair? After Mulan’s announcement, the Chinese army decided to let women enlist. Mulan retired in peace, knowing she’d never have to go near a urinal again.
But did you know Mulan’s story continued?
Mulan moved back to her hometown, got married, and had a son. Five years later, she heard a knock at the door. It was her old army boss, General Li.
“Mulan, we’re at war again,” General Li said. “We need you back! I’m offering you a promotion to be one of the lieutenant generals training our warriors. And I’ve doubled the budget for Dim Sum Fridays! You’ll accept, right?”
She had been considering going back to work recently, and also, she missed the commissary soup dumplings. “I’m in!” said Mulan.
Two months into training, Mulan’s troops were weeks ahead of the other units. They were stronger, faster, and were the only troops who could Hula-Hoop for forty-five minutes straight. The last part doesn’t sound like it’s a skill that would help out in war, but hip flexibility is very underrated.
One day during lunch at the mess hall, Mulan started making small talk with another lieutenant general.
“This Peking duck is delicious,” said Mulan as she plopped a bite in her mouth. “What Chef Zhang can do with canned wartime food is insane.”
“Don’t tell the chef, but I swiped a little extra,” said Lieutenant General Wu.
“I won’t tattle, but you gotta share,” she said, smiling.
As he passed her a piece of his food, a paper fell out of his coat pocket and landed at Mulan’s feet. She reached down to pick it up. It was his paycheck. And he was making some serious dough.
“Did you ask for an advance or are you on some different pay schedule?” she asked, puzzled.
“No, that’s just my weekly rate,” he said, before realizing something was wrong. “Don’t we all make this?”
Nope. What Mulan made in a month, Lieutenant General Wu made in a week. Mulan was shocked. And frankly, she was embarrassed. After all, they had the same job, the same rank, and the same Chinese zodiac sign (the Rooster: ambitious but with no patience for crossword puzzles).
She had assumed there was a standard rate for the position so she hadn’t thought to bring it up. Also, it felt rude to discuss money with other warrior killing machines.
But politeness hadn’t done her coin pouch any favors. She realized battling for your pay was no different than battling for your country: the opponent doesn’t give you anything unless you fight for it. She would go to General Li first thing in the morning. Mulan wanted her moola.
The next day, she put on her favorite suit of armor and backed up her list of spies, just in case things went south and she needed to quit on the spot.
She knocked on General Li’s tent.
“We need to discuss my pay,” Mulan said to General Li when he
opened the flap. “I’m making way less yuan than the male lieutenant generals. During the last war, I made the same as my peers.”
“The budget had tightened by the time you were hired. We are at war, after all,” said General Li. “Also, back then I thought you were a dude.”
“What?!”
“I’m sorry, Mulan. It’s not gonna happen. Come back in a few months and we’ll talk.”
But Mulan was prepared to defend her position. She had brought all the ammunition she needed: a bunch of spreadsheets full of cold hard data.
“My troops are six weeks ahead of every other unit, which means I’m saving the army 200,000 yuan a week. I oversee 30,000 warriors, as many as the other lieutenant generals. Plus, I’ve convinced them to go commando which is saving a ton of money on laundry.”
“That sounds really uncomfortable.”
“It’s a little cold but they got used to it,” said Mulan.
“Look, your husband also works so your paycheck is secondary income. And your coworkers didn’t take time off to have a child, so…”
“Whoa! That motherhood penalty crap should not be held against me,” said Mulan. “Also, having a child didn’t diminish my skill set. If anything it helped! Changing a little boy’s diaper is really all about hand-eye coordination.”
Before he could say anything, Mulan decided to go in for the kill. Old rules said to wait for your boss to give a salary number first, but Mulan knew that could lead to getting lowballed.
“I’m a proven war hero who has mastered martial arts, sword fighting, and fishtail braids. I want 700,000 yuan a year, like the other guys, plus back pay with interest,” she said firmly. “And I need a chariot that doesn’t squeak.”
“Mulan, you know I’m on your side,” said General Li. “But unfortunately it’s out of my hands. It really comes down to budget. You aren’t going to make us choose between your salary and armor for your troops, right? Do you want to have that over your head?”