Yahara Journal 2021

How to Be a Woman Trinity Lerum Be put in dresses while you’re too small to choose. Pick anything that has stripes when you can choose.

Grow up playing with Legos and Littlest Pet Shop. Play with stuffed animals with your twin and make up stories about carnivores at war with herbivores where the animals talk and kill each other and plot revenge and poison their enemies and make orphans. Read book after book after book—books about male main characters following the footsteps of Greek myths, standing against those who say unjust and untrue things, saving the world time and again. The women go crazy. The girls fall in love. These are your favorite stories.

Try to make the female characters your favorites but fail. The male characters get to hold swords and kill monsters. Get made fun of for these interests. Your parents tease you when you like a band of all boys. Your mother scoffs when you play video games for too long.

Your father rolls his eyes when you sing along to a musical.

Make up crushes on boys because you’re supposed to. In first grade, you’ll decide to like a boy named Oliver, but when you’re building a snow fort at recess, he’ll push you, so pick another. Pick the next boy you see. All through elementary school, you’ll date him, but you don’t talk to him. It’s okay. You stopped thinking he was interesting in second grade. Forget you’re supposed to have crushes on boys until seventh grade. By now, you’ve realized you’re supposed to feel something inside, not just pick. The new boy who is funny and nice makes you smile, so guess that you have a crush on him.

Chop your hair off. Everyone will say something about it. Your head feels lighter.

Kiss a girl in eighth grade. She says she feels fireworks when you lean in behind the library on a Wednesday after school, and you take her word for it. She’s your best friend. Date her. In freshman year of high school, believe there is something wrong with you for never having a favorite female character. Go to see the new Star Wars with your girlfriend and like it. The two of you will break up with each 18