All Girl Army

With the end of the year coming, it seemed as fine a time as any to thank others who have recognized all of you and applaud some of your achievements here at the AGA.

• Austrailia's Wo! Magazine included the AGA in their recent piece on feminist blog community.

• Em's entry Boy Things, Girl Things was listed in the most recent Carnival of Feminists.

I don’t know if it’s fair to say leave, because I wasn’t exactly here for very long. For what it’s worth, I’d really like to come back.

When I first saw a link to this site I immediately got excited, and wanted to jump on board right away. It struck me as a completely unique way to both exchange and get feedback on ideas, and being the fresh-faced and shiny-eyed feminist that I am, I wanted to take part. I had every intention of writing once a week with the same diligence I use to finish my math homework and study for the SATs. I never expected one of my closest friends to be raped, I never expected to feel so selfish about how upset I was, and I certainly never expected coming here to suddenly be painful. Add in the stress of some of my own health problems, and I quickly became furious about things that used to only feel like an abstract injustice. The idealist in me wanted to keep writing, but the rest of me was too pissed off at the world. I became very good at telling myself I would sign on “next weekend”, or “the week after that”, but all of a sudden I am sitting here two months later. I’ve always known that the easiest way to acutely deal with anger is to ignore it or stuff it into a box and throw away the key. After finally reading what some of what you have had to say these past few weeks, I’m starting to realize that anger can in fact be powerful. I’m sorry I’ve missed so much of that.

There is likely little need to say this, because if it isn't already self-evident, it will be very shortly.

But I'm going to say it anyway.

These young women you'll read here? They are an absolute inspiration. They are amazing, revolutionary, insightful, motivated, intelligent, driven, compassionate, brave. They are astonishing women, all of them. There hasn't been a day that passed since I started cultivating this project and hearing from them that something they have said hasn't brought me to the best kind of tears. They are not just everything we want our daughters to be: they are everything we want to be ourselves, no matter our age.