THE ANTI-TABOO

I always get nervous about the first thing I will say on a blog.

It’s important if you think about it -- it will create the overall tone of the blog until there are enough posts to fade it out into a page that is too far back for anyone to care about reading anymore. So, when I think about the first impression I want to create with this blog, the first thing that comes to mind to say for setting the tone is the following:

Young women are unique, beautiful, and complex beings. 

I say that from experience knowing young women, from being a young woman, and from observing young women. And that is the first thing I want to say to set the tone here because that’s what this blog is about: young women and their uniqueness; and particularly, the way they are often oblivious to their own beauty. 

In a way the blog will be a celebration of young women. However, the experience I mentioned in the above paragraph has lead me to discover that there are aspects of being a young woman that often go unspoken. These aspects tend to be defined by sadness and vulnerability and I would argue appear in the lives of most of the young women around the world; whether it’s a struggle with confidence, identity, sexuality, faith, family, or the standards of physical beauty young women across the world are held to on a daily basis. 

When I say some of these experiences that may appear in the lives of young women are defined by sadness and vulnerability, that does not mean that they are also defined by weakness. I believe in the young women I know as an ecclectic array of resilient humans who exhibit beauty on the outside but also on the in; who own a particular type of strength. Growing up and becoming an individual in the world is difficult for anyone, and there are particular challenges young women are subjected to every day. 

That leads me to what I want to accomplish with this blog: I am writing a collection of short stories about the experiences of young women who are trying to create their place in the world. It is what it called an Independent Professional Project in Red River College’s Creative Communications program. I am a journalism major in my final year of the program and I am very excited because the project was approved by my advisor today and I have considered many aspects of it already. It will be called Late Bloomers because I have come to see that  young women, at least in North American society, are held to a specific set of cultural expectations: obtaining an undergraduate degree by age 22, for example. Marrying with 2.5 kids by the age of 28, or identifying with a single gender. When these are the standards, everyone become a late bloomer in one way or another. 

Image from Google

I am going to use this blog to discuss the process of creating what will be a work of fiction based on interviews I have conducted with some of the most interesting and free-spirited girls I am lucky enough to call friends, and with others I meet along the way. I will also post about women who inspire this project so we can celebrate them by acknowledging whatever quality it is that speaks to the human condition from the perspective of a young female.

I also want this blog, along with the collection, to be a forum for speaking out on topics that are in some way related to being young and female that may be considered taboo -- anything from female masturbation to rivalry between friends to discussions about domestic abuse could appear on the blog. I believe the first step to creating change is to start a conversation; and a topic can only be addressed when people are no longer afraid to talk about it. 

So I hope you visit often enough to watch the project unfold, and to contribute to it by sharing your thoughts and experiences in the comment forum.

I will close the first post by saying that tomorrow I am leaving to Montreal to see the queen of self-expression, of bringing to light issues that often remain silent out of fear of talking about them; the  anti-taboo. I am going to see Madonna. 

Madonna is naturally an inspiration to my collection of short stories, and it is her fearlessness that inspires me. I admire her bravery to speak out on a variety of topics, namely females empowering themselves through their sexuality, despite the potential consequences speaking out on these topics may carry for her career and public image. 

ALL HAIL MADONNA.