Throughout my life as a woman I have seen the argument deployed again and again: gender liberation benefits both sexes. This I bought long before the pussy hat. So why now am I asking for a refund?
When I am not traveling the world to speak about my rise as a woman in the heavily male-dominated glue business, or mapping underwater cave systems (a childhood hobby turned passive income generator), I reside in a sleepy suburban neighborhood. While my relationship with the neighbors has always been contentious due to my letter-of-the-law approach to hedge heights, I have managed to maintain a level of mutual respect that, in no small part, stemmed from my long-held belief in gender equality. However, This belief did not protect me from the pain I was about to endure.
It began on a moonless Wednesday evening when I returned from a low-stakes game of backgammon with some of my closest friends. In this male space, I always make sure to respect the unique masculine perspective that makes gambling so sacred. When I’m winning, I always remind myself that someone else is losing. I try to pace myself, always aware that society holds loser men to a higher standard than loser women.
As I drove home, my clutch full of half the winnings I could’ve held but my heart full of the magnanimity that comes with mutual respect, i decided to listen to the woefully underrated back half of “folklore”. However, as I drive a 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith, it meant taking my eyes off the road to turn on my Beats Pill. In this split second, feet away from my doorstep, everything I knew about Feminism changed.
I had hit Honeybee, my neighbor’s beloved Golden Doodle. I immediately exited the car and went to the poor wretch, who was wailing in complete misery. Its mangled body was still entwined with my bumper and how it managed to survive the initial impact was a question I still ask God. The commotion alerted the family of eight who came bounding over with pitchforks in hand. As each child took turns telling the dying animal how much it was loved, the parents took turns blaming me for turning into their driveway and killing their dog on their property. My response was that the dog was not yet dead, and with my concealed carry, the only option left was to put the thing out of its misery. They begged me holster my weapon, a Colt Buntline Special, but as you already may know, this barrel is 15” long and near impossible to re-holster without the privacy of a dressing room. Rather than face questions of impropriety in front of the rather improprietous family (six children, none of which are twins) I aimed between the five year old and the six year old and pulled the trigger. With that the beast was released of its pathetic suffering.
What was already tragic event next turned disastrous. As I attempted to dislodge Honeybee’s endtrails from my vehicle, the father of the group stopped me. He looked me dead in my eyes and called me a “Bitch.” I was shocked, to say the least. It immediately sent me back to a traumatic event in middle school, where someone else called me a “bitch” under shockingly similar circumstances. That traumatized child within me finally responded in the way I had fantasized about so many decades since: “so you think women shouldn’t be allowed to drive?”
The release was instant. All the coping mechanisms I had built up crumbled instantly—the male-space gambling, the founding of a glue empire, the really awful haircut I kept throughout my 20s, 30s and 40s, it all made sense. In my belief of feminism, I sought to become a man myself: the kind of man that would accept a woman as an equal. It was the “man” in me that believed women shouldn’t drive.
Since that night, one and a half weeks ago, I have felt my hard edges soften. I have taken up “stereotypical” female activities, such as watching TV, cleaning up after myself, and even dabbling in producing raucous Jungle music. I can look in the mirror and see a “real” woman, not a half-man in feminist clothing.
As my fate works its way through the civil court, I am not dredging through dread in fisherman’s garb. Rather, I am light as air as I sashay towards the defendant’s chair in Jimmy Choo Didi 45 pointed-toe sling backs.
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Beth Sheds is a contributing reporter and author of the book, “Eat, Slay, Love: Taylor Swift, Raytheon, and Me” @shedsheads on X and Meta.
