The Vagenda

Here is a List of My Teenage Anxeties

 


1.) School

2.) Exams

3.) The patriarchy

4.) The fact that statistically, even if I go to Oxbridge, I will get a less paid job than a man with the same qualifications

5.) Shitty Wi-Fi

6.) When the boy I like reads my texts and doesn’t reply

7.) More of my friends have lost their virginity through rape than consensually

8.) I think I’m going to die a virgin

9.) Up until last summer my best friend told me I was a whore and no longer a virgin because I used tampons from the first time I got my period

10.) The whole bloody concept of virginity (it’s no longer the 1800s, women don’t need to be ‘deflowered’)

11.) I got called a frigid bitch for refusing to give a guy a blow job for half a bottle of vodka

12.) The fact that being thin matters more to me than it should

13.) My friends think the fact that I’m passionate about what I believe in is funny

14.) I should probably stop smoking


15.) The fact that a guy I’ve met once thinks it’s ok to ask me if I’ve a) been raped, b) how many boyfriends I’ve had in the past, c) tell my friends that ‘he likes my tits, even though they’re small’, d) presume that because I hate slut-shaming that I must, therefore be ‘a slut’

16.) I hung my underwear from my skylight to dry because there was no space anywhere else and a builder working on the house opposite complained because my pants were ‘distracting him’

17.) Three girls in my year at school have been hospitalised for eating disorders

18.) Kurt Cobain is dead

19.) I’m regularly too lazy to shave my legs

20.) I regularly get told that I’m too clever and tall so guys will never like me

21.) My mum doesn’t allow me in a taxi cab by myself because her best friend got raped in a taxi

22.) It’s a normal thing to be catcalled at when I’m in town, in my school uniform with my friends

23.) My geography teacher thinks it’s entertaining when I get angry about the way he objectifies women

24.) Is a Brazilian really necessary?

25.) My politics teacher laughs at me when I say I feel that everyone should vote because women died for it, because, according to him, women’s opinions don’t matter as much.

26.) I’m scared to walk alone at night

27.) I think I’m addicted to caffeine

28.) As a thin, white, native English speaker, with a private-school education, I get so much privilege for doing absolutely nothing

29.) Tuition fees

30.) How the fuck does UCAS work??!
 
- LK

10 thoughts on “Here is a List of My Teenage Anxeties

  1. Thank you for sharing, it makes me (I’m 18) feel a lot better! I’ve been worrying about most of the things on your list (except Cobain, since I don’t like Nirvana)

  2. I’m 18 and agree with many of these concerns, as well as the fear of having to choose between a career and a family, why should I have to choose?!

  3. I’m 21 and (almost all of) these things still worry me. Also it makes me sad to think that when I was a teenager, even a very young teenager, these worries were just as present as they are now. Also, could not have put 28 any better myself. ;)

  4. I FEEL YOUR PAIN.
    It is ridiculous that between 13-18, and STILL AT SCHOOL there is a pressure to look like the airbrushed girls in magazines.

    And there’s nothing wrong with being tall and clever. It is sexist that these qualities are considered to be ONLY attractive male traits. Being tall and clever should be considered general attractive traits that a human can possess.

    A standard day…

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