Not Here to Be Liked

by Michelle Quach

A girl who seeks a leadership position must be smart, competent, hardworking, attractive, and, above all, nice. She must be all of those things in order to stand a chance against a male opponent, who frequently only has to be some of those things, and sometimes isn’t any of them. A guy who seeks a leadership position just has to try not to mess up too much. Girls get judged for their past; guys get judged for their potential.

I just wanted to posit, however, that perhaps your cause would be better served by a less antagonistic approach?” I inspect the button, which lies there like an arraigned criminal. “Is it antagonistic to be a feminist?”

“Your parents want what’s good for you, but they don’t always know what’s best for you.”

The book points out that large portions of history, and ways of looking at history, are lost when we don’t pay attention to the lives of women who aren’t necessarily fighting to be heard.