In the words of Salt N Pepa, “the difference between a hooker and a ho ain’t nothin’ but a fee.”

Apparently, with today’s struggling economy, that ‘fee’ can come in many forms. Gas is well over $4 a gallon, and after a Kentucky woman sold her body for a full tank, a prosecutor commented that it’s sad when people are selling their bodies for gas. (Uh, duh?) Of course, there are plenty of other sexual behaviors out there that border the fine line between “hooker” and “ho.”

Look at aspiring “actress” Ranae Shrider, whose most prominent role to date is opposite Mini Me, Verne Troyer, in a scandalous sex tape. Reportedly, Shrider has been shopping the tape all over Hollywood, asking for $25,000 or more for the vid. What do you think, ladies? Hooker or Ho?

Of course, we also have the glamorized portrait of the “prostitute with a heart of gold.” You know, Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. We hate Jason Alexander for trying to solicit poor Julia, and we cheer when Richard Gere shows up in his limo to whisk her into the sunset. Then we call our ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend a “whore” behind her back. Read More »

I’ve always made a bad girl.

I don’t mean to say that I’m bad. I’m far too responsible for that. I listen to NPR. I vote in primaries. But when it comes to femininity, to the trappings of girlhood (the shoes, the makeup, the cooking, the arcane household crafts), I just do not get it. I am not good at it. I fail to perform “girl” correctly.

It’s not as if I haven’t been trained for the job. Throughout my childhood, several family members staged interventions and crash courses on femininity, from the grandmother who told me that I could be so pretty, if only I’d try a little, to the cousins who told me that ya cain’t use big words on a guy, or he won’t like ya. My father – a check-bouncing, hard-drinking, waitress-dating guy who rode motorcycles and used the word f*ck approximately eight times in any given conversation – despaired over my failure to become, in his words, “a real lady.”

I tried. I really did. Before I knew what feminism was, I studied gender, the assumptions and behaviors and roles that were assigned to the men and women around me. I didn’t have revolutionary aims. I just wanted to know what I was missing.

This is what I picked up:

Boys are strong. Girls are gentle. Boys are brave. Girls are patient. Boys want to have fun. Girls want to have babies. Boys are attractive because of what they do. Girls are attractive because of how they look. Boys smoke, drink, and screw. Girls cook, clean, and marry. Boys pick the girls they want. Girls take the boys who pick them. Boys can’t help themselves. Girls spend their time helping.

To borrow a phrase from my dear father: f*ck that sh*t. Read More »