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Not All Women
Women’s voices, race and media coverage
Once upon a time, in what feels like a very long time ago, I had a boyfriend whose closest childhood friend was a woman. Let’s call her “M.” They had met in high school and remained good buddies even after going off to different colleges, different cities, different lives. Sometimes M. would come for a visit. I liked her too — I thought she was pretty cool, overall, and her visits were welcome.
M. and I had a lot in common: we were about the same age, we were both first generation Americans, we both came from parents who grew up in Northern Europe. We were both artistic and creative, and it seemed to me that we were both perceived the same ways sexually by others.
We had also both had a string of somewhat chaotic love affairs. By the time I met M., I was calming down into a rhythm with my boyfriend, M.’s high school best friend. But M. was still out there, dating, falling in and out of love, and on her visits would often regale us with tales of her misadventures and, more often than not, narrow escapes from dangerous men.
After one such visit, my boyfriend said something along the lines of, “Poor M. I’d like to help her, and make sure she stays safe.”
When my boyfriend and I had first met, I had told him similar tales of my own misadventures. Not once…
