AGA Roll Call: A Room of Our Own

Living in a women's community means more than buying tampons in bulk. I've been living with women only for the past 4 years but only now do I understand the difference between living with women and living in a women's space.

My apartment gives off a vibe that is uniquely female. When you walk in you are likely to encounter either me or one of my roomates (or all three of us) in various stages of undress. We shower and use the bathroom with the door wide open so that we can better hear and sing along to the music that plays almost 24 hours a day.

My roomates and I spend hours a day lying on each other's bed's like clichéd 50's teenage girls but not gossiping, truly sharing. Sharing in the way that our society dismisses as "girly" and unimportant.

I must admit, that I after a reasonably unpleasant day yesterday and an equally unpleasant sleepless night, I am feeing a little lost this morning. But I wanted to jump in here and say hello first off! And share a few of my thoughts with you this morning.

It occurred to me this morning, that the littlest things mean the most to you, when most of your power is taken from you each day. Laying in bed this morning thinking "hmmmm should I stay here and try to fall asleep again, or just get up and make coffee already?" may well be the nicest decision I have to make all day, because it’s MINE.

Before I was a part of the AGA, I’d never been heavily involved in any community that was exclusively for women. I had always wanted to be, but never knew where I could find an outlet like that, outside of particular music genres, slumber parties, or girl-cliques in High School. Sororities were what I had to look forward to, if I wanted to be involved with a community specifically made for girls, and that was pretty much it.

But after moving last Friday to a new house, going to school with a new major, and enjoying new volunteer opportunities, I can tell that I’m going to have everything that I wanted for this year, and my ambition to find cool girl-communities is being fulfilled with a vengeance.

For two years now, I’ve been studying to become an English teacher. Literature is one of my big passions in life and I cannot wait to stand in front of a classroom and work together with teenagers to pass my passion on to them. But ever since my best friend took me to a neighbourhood coffee place several years ago, there’s been another plan taking shape in the back of my mind.

For centuries women have tried to create a place where they could be comfortable and be women. We have all tried this; signs on our bedroom doors that said "Girls Only" or "Girls Rule and Boys Drool". Yet these were easily penetrated by our brothers, we were called lesbians by older boys, we were tormented. We went through puberty and the signs came down, our shade went down and "boys" started to become a more important focus then our girl friends (or girlfriends started being more then 'just friends').

There are few places where women can be women. High school locker rooms, 'mommy' groups, baby and wedding showers. We can only be alone as women in places that fit our societal gender roles. We can't be alone in areas that we are trying to break into. Men often wonder why women travel in packs shopping and go to the bathroom together. They just don't understand that women go to the bathroom together to talk about make-up, sex, their periods, maybe even show off their new bra. Men have golf courses, dirty bars, Pep Boys, barber shops, hardware stores, basket ball courts and a million other places they can talk about 'male' type things. Women are left with bathrooms, changing rooms and parties surrounding large life events.

When The Little Rascals (the movie, not the show) came out, I joined up with a few similarly inclined friends and, at the tender age of--what, eight?--,we formed our She-Woman Man-Haters Club on the elementary school playground.

What did our club do? Not much out of the usual recess routine, if I remember. But naming a common goal changed our time out among the swings; we walked a little taller, spoke a little freer. Forget that a week later, we were back racing the boys around the track and winning every game of four-square--we had, for a moment, a sense of community I had not been able to match for more than a decade.

"Women, then, have not had a dog's chance of writing poetry. That is why I have laid so much stress on money and a room of one's own."~ Virginia Woolf

When we went through the applications to choose each of you, the biggest common thread you shared (and which we were looking for most) was that you all both wanted women's community for yourselves, and expressed a dedication to nurturing women's community for other young women.

Write about why you want and need women's community. Here are some ideas to play with:

• When you don't have it, what is the experience of that missing piece? How do you think it effects women individually and as a class to be without their own spaces?