Wow, She Said It Out Loud...

I have a core memory of being roughly thirteen and being at the beach with my friends. My version of “at the beach” revolves around sunblock reapplication and careful monitoring of the sun’s heavenly position so that I might stay in the shade for as long as is physically possible. That’s the reality of a shoreside ginger, we’re an indoor type until mid-October at the earliest on the East Coast, but I digress. I was safely ensconced in the umbrella’s protection and listening to some boyband album for the 500th time on my walkman when I decided to change it up and listen to the most interestingly titled CD I could find in my limited collection. This honor belonged to Alanis Morrissette’s Jagged Little Pill.

I had never listened to the album before but I started at the beginning and played it all the way through, awestruck. The music is brash and melodic and interesting, and Alanis’s vocals are unique, but those weren’t the things keeping my attention - it was what she was saying, and the fact that she had the balls to say it. As shade slipped away from my SPF-drenched self I sat mesmerized by the idea that a woman (and a young woman at that) was railing loudly and unapologetically about the things that pissed her off.

I don’t often get that feeling. That feeling that hits you and makes you say, “Wow, she said it out loud.” Like most things, society is likely to blame for that. If you’re feminine or identify as a woman it’s assumed that you’re more likely to cry and crumble than to point fingers and rage. That’s why, when I see women take the louder, more accusatory road less traveled by, it fills me with hope that one day the roads that diverge in the yellow wood of what is deemed acceptable behavior by gender might converge. I caught a glimpse of the paths threatening to intersect most recently when I read Serena Williams’ piece for Vogue about her retirement. When she said she wouldn’t be retiring if she were a man, that she’d continue playing and winning and leave the physical hardships of expanding her family to her spouse, I saw the road less traveled by illuminated in full splendor for a moment in time. All because she said it out loud.

There’s so much to be said for keeping one’s head down and carrying on when things are difficult and there are surely circumstances in which that’s the best course of action. But I’m often surprised at how moved I am to see people stand up and say, “circumstances of gender/race/orientation/etc. have limited my options, and I’m gonna tell you how angry that makes me.” Anger gets so much done. Maybe not in the throes of rage, but once the rage is spoken and dissected it can be dealt with. Perhaps the flames that are fanned by our anger only have the power to burn down the yellowed wood of our apparent choices when left to flare uncontrolled, and by inspecting and controlling the flames through discussion we might light third, fourth, fifth, and infinite alternative paths significantly less trod because they wait for us as individuals.