I grew up in a very different environment than most kids. One where your backpack was filled with smocks, hardened paints, six different pairs of ballet shoes and tarnished Arthur Miller scripts. One where your best friend was a boy who wore shiny tap shoes, spandex and worked incredibly hard to figure out the best way to mime "flying a plane". He was also (and is still) incredibly straight (perplexing I know). If you hadn't figured it out by now (it's early in the week still for some of us), I went to a performing arts school for a decade of my life. I was continuously exposed to all kinds of eccentric wackos of every race, religion, gender and sexual orientation. So, when I left and went into the real world, I still held on to certain ideals that I foolishly thought were the norm. For instance, ridiculous things like, wearing a character skirt on top of sweatpants as socially acceptable attire and, all men and women being treated equally. What an idiot, right?
I mean, to be fair, I didn't really notice the dichotomy between men and women in high school or university (the whole skirt/sweatpants thing was a much quicker realization). We hadn't yet gone on to graduate school and seen where the big boy's schlongs turn into cigars (that's actually what happens, can you believe it?) and women's vaginas turn into black holes that suck opportunity away from them into their uteruses and then shit themselves back out, years later, as baby boys (read that again as David Attenborough- totally believable).
I suppose this is only news to you if you are living on a lesbian socialist commune (which I think about joining more and more everyday). But otherwise, once you've hit adulthood, those knockers you once used to get you out of homeroom and into some guy's bedroom, are actually making your struggle to succeed in life an even bigger struggle (PARTAAAAYYYYYYYY!!! Getcha ovaries out ladies! WHAT? WHAAAAT?).
For example, now that I've hurled myself into the world of stand-up comedy, the contrast between men and women has never seemed more drastic. It truly is still a man's world and it's been a seriously eye-opening (and depressing, let's not forget depressing) experience.
Imagine you're new to the stand-up game, hungry to succeed (and for food probably) and already so terrified of failure that you duck in and out of consciousness like a groundhog (or a very urgent number 2 situation). You then find out, at an open mic night, that you're the only woman on the lineup, and potentially in the bar. Any hope of you making vagina jokes are dead and gone. Kaput! Don't even think about vaginas. Forget you have one. Cork it while you're at it.
But WHY? Why no vagina jokes? They're hilarious. You know how many dick, rape and fart jokes I've sat through? And how many women next to me were in stitches (heck I even laughed at some!)? Why is it, then, that women can laugh at the ludicrousness of the male species, and, yet, men (and some women) are, for the most part, perplexed and uncomfortable at any mention of our sexes anatomical misfortunes? Cause I gotta tell ya ladies and gentlemen, this shit is real, it's happening, and if we don't laugh about it we may just implode. Which, if we're being candid here, is actually what I think happened to Amelia Earhart.