GROWING UP GIRL!!!

The meaning of "girl" has been given a much needed make-over. The truth that girlhood is more about insolence than innocence; that little girls are made more of piss and vinegar than sugar and spice is finally being told.

When I was growing up I tried to find my girl heroes wherever I could. I remember sitting on the floor of my dark bedroom every Sunday morning, watching old shirley temple movies. Hugging my knees to my chest, I'd be mesmerized by shirley as she tap-danced her way through one tragedy after another. The fact that her movies made me cry was all the better.

They fed my girlish desire to feel deep, sensitive, and a bit melodramatic. In books, I could find a few girl characters I could relate to, but mostly, stories with girls at the center were few and far between. There was certainly no female equivalent to huck finn.

My education of all things Girl began in 1991. I began listening to female led bands like l7, the breeders, p.j. harvey and the like. I began reading "sassy" magazine religiously..it was my bible. Sassy was every teenage girls bible for all things girl. It was full of attitude, you could practically hear the sound of gum-snapping emanating from it's pages. Sassy was a magazine like no other: unapolegitcally feminist, smart, funny, and irreverent. Sassy spoke to its readers in the language of girl. It was written in the way that we spoke to each other, and any girl who read sassy felt herself instantly transported to the world of girl..

As long as we keep telling the truth about what it's like to grow up in a girl's skin, we can show what the world of girls is all about. So I'm here to say to the girl's of our nation: ASK NOT WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR CUNT, BUT ASK WHAT YOUR CUNT CAN DO FOR YOU!

A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF CUNT

The word is Cunt. So many hate it. I love the word CUNT. And find it so perfect. Cunt is taboo, and taboo things are scary and powerful. Cunt is different from bitch. Cunt is bitch's naughtier little sister. I figure it's so fucking dangerous, and it's so intimately about my anatomy, that it's going to be mine, too.

Cunt is direct, it's unafraid to be what it is. Bitch is more sanitized. Cunt is a word that you wouldn't say in front of your mother. There's nothing that frat boys can call me that I haven't thought of myself, before you. And I'm using it my own way, thanks so much.

There have been lots of divine cunts in history. I think of Catherine the Great, who used her literal cunt to great effect. Mae West was considered a cunt because she was funny and sexy but also because she insisted on directing her own movies and slept with whomever she wanted.

I have two final things to say about why I love cunt. First of all, the thing in itself. Cunt is in charge, take-no-prisoners, and brazen. Finally, cunt is about being an insider. Or making somebody one of you.

For fun and for mean, for expression and for irony, cunt is it!!