bonjour

so. first post.

i should probably start with an introduction, yeah? my name is alexandra. i'm sixteen years old, and i live in a small midwestern town. i have lived in said town all my life and have recently discovered how homogenous and conservative it is. i don't really blend in here. this used to bother me, a lot. it doesn't so much anymore.

i think that i've always been a feminist, even when i was a kid. but it was only fairly recently that i got my "feminist wake-up call" as i think of it. on a whim last fall i picked up a copy of susan faludi's backlash. things just seemed to click after that. i read jessica valenti's full frontal feminism, which was like the gateway drug to feminism. i started reading books, blogs, magazines, getting as much information as possible. i began to develop opinions and then voicing them, louder and louder as my confidence grew. when i became op-ed editor of my school newspaper, i used the space to write about sexism in the election and plan to write a lot more next year.

basically, last year was the year i came out of the closet in most aspects of my life. i came out as bisexual to my family and to an extent, my school, when i started dating my first girlfriend. i started to refer to myself as a liberal and a feminist. although i still struggle to have the courage to show my true self, especially as an extremely shy person, it's so much easier for me to stop hiding and start talking about the things that are important to me.

however, talking to my family proved difficult. my parents took my bisexuality very hard, and would much prefer to stay in denial about it. they also are not fond of hearing of my political beliefs and my "obsession" with feminism, as my mother once put it. friends are difficult as well, as many kids at my school are pretty apathetic about politics. my best friend (who i will be referring to as "prep") is probably the only person who i can talk politics with, although that too is difficult as she's a staunch conservative and we usually end up frustrated and yelling at each other. so i need a place to express my opinions, make my voice heard, and work on my writing, which is something that has been inportant to me all my life. so i decided to throw my hat into the blogosphere. so, here it goes. here's what i have to say. you can like it, you can hate it, but all i ask is that you listen to it. and hopefully some of it will resonate with you.