Backseat Feminist

It’s a scary word and always has been, but I don’t know why. Most men fear it because one day they got together and decided it means something else entirely. It scares them, perhaps because they feel threatened, and for a moment I am glad. I am glad they feel the threat I feel every night walking to my car alone, or on afternoons when a letter carrier knocks on my door unexpectedly and my heart lurches, because for that moment, I am in danger. For that moment, I am reminded I am a woman. And the moment when I say the word, they get to feel like me.

The creaking Volvo rumbles and roars as I try to pick up bits and pieces of the conversation happening between the men seated in front of me. One of them belongs to me and the other does not.

“Honey, could you speak up please? I can’t make out what you’re saying up there,” I say with invitation as I dry my sweating palms on my skirt pleats.

“We’re just talking about Grandma, babe,” my husband says over his shoulder without letting his eyes leave the road or his hands leave the wheel.

“About that comment she made about the pill,” his brother laughs. “She’s hysterical.” He slaps his knee and faces forward in his seat.

I lean forward to become part of the conversation. “Did you know it wasn’t even invented until the 1960s?” I speak loudly so I am heard over the motor’s gravelly voice, but I can’t help but feel that I’m yelling when I shouldn’t be.

“Birth control?” my husband asks.

“Yeah. It was really the beginning of the feminist revolution. Sexual awakening and all that.”

“Well that makes sense,” my brother-in-law chimes in. “Before that, women were too afraid of getting pregnant. They used to be driven by morality I guess.”

I clench and unclench my jaw. “We still are. And it takes two people to get pregnant by the way.”

“I never said it didn’t. Stop putting words in my mouth.”

I sit back in my seat and decide to leave this battle for another day. A road trip to my in-laws’ house for Thanksgiving is neither the time nor the place to get in a family argument.

“Wait, James is right,” my husband says. “Back in the good old days, women weren’t as promiscuous because they had the consequence of pregnancy, but once the pill pretty much gave them free reign, it turned into free love and that whole movement in the 60s. Isn’t that what lead to AIDS?”

“Oh my god,” I grumble.

“What?” James challenges. “No, say what you have to say.”

“I don’t want to have this argument.”

“Roy and I are just trying to have a discussion with you. It’s not an argument.”

“Fine,” I consent. “You can’t really think the creation of the pill lead to the outbreak of a worldwide epidemic.”

“Whoa, now I never said that,” Roy says, taking both hands off the wheel and back-pedaling like his life depends on it. “I never said they were causally related, just that the correlation cannot be ignored as it all began in the same decade and in the same population.” His experience in academia is apparent; it’s as if he is making a presentation before his peers and has just realized his mistake. The vernacular shifts and the verbosity shows through his best intentions.

“The pill let women claim their sexuality for the first time,” I say. I feel myself climbing on the soapbox, but I can’t help it and I don’t want to. “In the centuries prior, women weren’t seen as having sexual desires but as wives whose primary role was to produce children. People found the idea of a woman enjoying herself ghastly. Even sinful. Suddenly, women were almost granted permission to enter into sex for no other reason than to have a good time, just like men had been doing for a thousand years. No strings attached.”

I step down from the box feeling good about myself, but it isn’t over.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Roy says. “The pill caused women to be more promiscuous.”

“Promiscuity existed long before the pill did.”

“Yeah Roy, what about prostitutes?” James says to this brother, thinking he’s agreeing with my point. “They’re as promiscuous as it gets.”


“You both keep forgetting there are two halves to this.”

“Who, men?” James balks.

“You never alluded that men became more promiscuous when the invention of the condom came about, which was around the sixteenth century by the way.” I slump back against the vinyl bench seat with a thump, resisting the urge to cross my arms and let my bottom lip protrude. I want to ask why they aren’t listening to me, but what I ask instead is, “Why does this have to be ‘us versus them?’ Aren’t we on the same side here?”

“With bra burners?” James laughs.

I sigh. It’s clear I am getting nowhere, and I notice Roy has fallen strangely silent. “Why are we even talking about this?” I ask.

“You brought it up, Anna.” James jabs the air with an index finger.

Only I didn’t. But instead I say, “You’re right. I don’t know why I did. See, this is why I didn’t want to talk about it.”

“We can talk about this stuff while keeping a level head. You’re the one who turned it into a fight about your rights.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

I’m left in the backseat of an old Volvo driven and directed by two stubborn men. A woman who, in an argument about feminism, is the one apologizing.

The irony doesn't escape me. Instead, it brings prickling tears to my eyes, hot and stinging, and again I try to hide what I am. I let one tear after another fall down my face and pray they don’t turn around in their seats. They never do. If they see me, I will appear weak; if they know they will laugh. I am being too emotional, I am overreacting.

I make excuses for myself, but most painful are the excuses I make for them. 

Written by: HG Reed

Photograph by: Daniel Vidal

Soft

The florescent lights beam, brutal and unforgiving. Her computer monitor flickers, one speaker making a low humming sound. Joy taps the speaker against the dirty gray cubicle wall and the hum subsides. The flicker continues, a blip Joy notices on days when she feels terrible and everything annoys her.

Today is one of the worse days. Joy chugs a fizzy orange concoction of water and Emergen-C and devours a lukewarm Sausage McMuffin.

Like I always say, drown your allergies and feed your hangover.

Joy checks her calendar for the day and groans, slumping down in her chair and jutting her chin with a childish pout.

“What’s wrong?” Her cubicle neighbor Shawn pops his head over their shared wall. “Jesus, Joy. You look awful.”

“I feel awful,” Joy admits.

“Is it your allergies?”

“And nausea.”

“Maybe you’re pregnant,” Shawn says. He walks around to prop himself on the corner of Joy’s cubicle, crossing his legs and blocking her escape.

“I doubt it,” Joy says — but she sits up straighter and sucks in her stomach a little, angry at her body’s treason, for giving Shawn a reason to think he could be right. She tucks a swath of braids behind her ear and glances back at the Outlook calendar on her screen. “I have an early meeting I forgot about, and since I’m not feeling 100%—”

God, I should not have had a second margarita. Who gets hungover from two margaritas at dinner?

“You’re at that age, you know. You should be careful. I mean, it’s possible, isn’t it?” Shawn presses.

Joy’s brown eyes meet his blue ones, soft and kind. She twists her gold bracelet around her wrist, searching for a response that doesn’t involve expletives.

I got nothing.

“Just think about it, Joy. And let me know if you want to talk. Or need some aspirin,” Shawn says. He withdraws back to his cubicle, the wall separating them once more.

The speakers emit the same long, low hum. Joy unplugs them and throws them in the trash, watching them fall to the bottom and the plastic trash bag billow, an insulated bubble forming and absorbing one of the morning’s grievances. She collects her warped legal pad and the pen with the fewest visible teeth marks on the cap and heads to her boss’s office.

When Joy returns she has six pages of notes to transcribe, the imprint of her bracelet on her wrist, and Paulo pawing through the top drawer of her file cabinet.

“Can I help you?”

With a wrinkled Oxford and Ray-Bans perched on the edge of a broad nose, Paulo looks how Joy feels, but without the benefit of being able to slap on some makeup and minimize the reanimated corpse effect.

Chalk one up for the beauty myth.

“My highlighter ran out. Hey, do you not want those speakers?” Paulo gestures to her trash can.

“You can have ‘em, but they don’t work. They keep making noise,” Joy says.

“Isn’t that what speakers are supposed to do?”

Joy feels like her whole body is blushing. Maybe it’s just the hangover. She shakes her head and takes a swig of tepid vending machine Vitamin Water that cost her $2.50.

And what little appetite I regained.

“No, I mean, they make a weird feedback sound like every few minutes. It was driving me crazy,” Joy bites her bottom lip and presses forward. “And you can have a highlighter, but ask next time, okay? It’s rude to go through someone else’s desk.”

“Mee-YOW!” Paulo quips as he curls stubby fingers around her favorite purple highlighter. “Someone’s in a mood today.”

Shawn takes the opportunity to wheel his desk chair around and mortify Joy.

“Mood swing?” He looks at her with the same kind eyes. “Could be hormones.”

Oh for fuck’s sake.

“Thanks for the highlighter,” Paulo retreats to his cubicle at the end of the row, his usual swagger diminished to a sluggish stumble.

“Sunglasses inside? Yikes,” she jerks her thumb in Paulo’s direction, hoping Shawn will take the bait.

“Probably out late last night. It happens!”

Ladies get hungover, too.

“Probably. Happens to all of us,” Joy agrees. She pauses, twisting her bracelet around until the largest chain centers over her pulse point, faint but dark veins underneath. “You know, Shawn, asking someone not to go through your desk isn’t a mood swing. It’s basic common courtesy.”

“You’ve never gotten mad at Paulo before,” Shawn waves his hand dismissively.

“He’s always asked before,” Joy counters. “You’d say something if you came back and he was clawing through your stuff.”

Shawn mumbles an agreement. The arm of his office chair connects with the cubicle wall, the smack punctuating his retreat.

That night, Joy slides her heels off as soon as she steps into her apartment. She slides the bracelet off her wrist and lets it fall onto the counter, the clatter echoing. After half a dozen makeup remover wipes, the fresh healthy face she wore most of the day lies in layers in her trash can.

Paulo never took those speakers.

A spring storm settles in for the weekend and Joy binge-watches the first two seasons of Orange Is the New Black and eats only oatmeal and the dregs of her frozen dinner supply, refusing to leave or pay delivery fees.

Joy thinks about Shawn, too: his misunderstanding, but also his kindness. The way he asks about her weekend and saves a corner seat for her in department meetings. How large and bright his smile was when he came back from meeting his first grandchild.

He doesn’t know any better. He doesn’t mean it.

The sunrise wakes her on Monday. Her routine is slow, deliberate: selecting the perfect outfit, packing her gym bag. Before she leaves, she slides her gold bracelet back on, the metal cool but comforting.

Carpe diem.



Written by: Erin Justice
Photograph by: Rob Gregory

A Woman's Desire

Leila opened her eyes for the first time.

Tiny beads of humidity blanketed her naked skin, catching light from the faintest rays of sunshine peeking through the canopy. She was in fetal position upon the damp earth, arms threaded between her thighs and knees pressed against her breasts. She blinked a few times before tilting back her head, peering up at the arms of the tree she rested beneath. Then she heard something, a high pitched sound that had a rhythm and melody, and she realized it was coming from a small bird with a red forehead and bright yellow chest sitting on a branch above.

She smiled before her mouth open in wonder.

Leila rolled over onto her back and stretched her arms and legs, easily six feet tall if she ever decided to stand up. She interlaced her fingers beneath her head, gazing up at the leaves, and digging her heels into the dirt. Another bird called out from the distance and she tried to replicate the sound, bracing the back of her throat and pressing the tip of her tongue behind her bottom row of teeth. The attempt delighted her, evoking a ringing laughter from somewhere behind her eyes and nose.

But someone else was laughing, too.

She sat up and pressed her back against the base of the tree, eyes darting left and right before locking eyes with someone emerging from the foliage ahead. He wore a red tunic and brown gloves, carrying a bow in one hand as he stepped forward, smiling at her. Leila had never seen a man before. She was horrified, yet mesmerized at the same time. He must have felt her fear because he knelt down in front of her, about ten feet away, one arm draped over his knee and his other hand resting on the ground.

“Hello, bright eyes,” he said.

Leila swallowed and said, “Lo.”

He laughed again, lowering himself to the ground and wrapping his arms around his knees. She was afraid of him because he was strange to her, but she could not ignore her natural desire to gaze upon his face and lean toward him.

The man placed his hand on his chest and said, “I am Arthur.”

“Thoor,” she said.

Another laugh and, “Yes, that’s right. That will do. And you, what shall I call you?”

Although Leila had never spoken her name before, she seemed to know deep down what it was, a combination of song and sigh that rolled off the tongue with ease. It pleased her to say it, and even more to say it to him.

“That’s a beautiful name,” Arthur said.

Leila crawled forward, her brown hair falling over her shoulders and swaying. Just in front of him, she sat back on her heels and offered her right hand, palm up. Arthur took off his leather glove and held her hand in his, meeting her gaze and wanting nothing more than to hold her against his body and kiss her neck. He wanted to smell the earth on her back and run his thumb over her hip. Leila’s quiet strength buffered his self control, and then he knew what she was.

“Ah, Leila,” he said. “You are a dryad.”

She smiled, pulling his hand to her chest.

He removed a leaf from her hair and looked up at the tree behind her. “And is this your tree, sweet nymph?”

Leila turned to look and she nodded with understanding.

“Extraordinary,” he said as he stood up and approached the tree, still holding Leila’s hand. “She looks old and very wise.”

Arthur turned to Leila and placed his hands on her shoulders, tracing her collar bones with his thumbs. She pressed her palms against his chest, assessing the fabric of his tunic with her fingertips.

“It’s curious that you should appear in my moment of need. For a year now, I’ve been seeking the answer to a question, and it escapes me. Being with you only makes it harder to discern. What do women most desire?”

Leila seemed to ponder his words as Arthur squatted at the base of the tree, leaning back against it and pulling a small knife from his boot. He dug the tip into one of the roots, then dropped it, startled by Leila’s sharp cry. She fell forward, placing her hand over the spot where his knife pierced the bark. Arthur reached for her, but she recoiled. She glared at him as if a wounded woman, ready to retaliate. Her warmth was gone.

“Leila, I’m so sorry. It was thoughtless,” he said.

He reached for her again, but she shrugged him off, avoiding his eyes and staring at the ground. The silence stretched for miles between them and he could feel her spirit harden against him. For a moment, Arthur imagined bringing her home with him. He could make her his wife, his queen. She would bear his children and become the face of the kingdom. She would be a woman, not a spirit. So long as this tree lived, Leila could easily outlive him. His fantasy ended when he felt her hand upon his. Their eyes met and she smiled, but she also shook her head.

“No, Thoor,” she said.

What do women most desire?

They stood together, fingers interlaced. Arthur wanted to wrap his arms around her naked body and press his mouth to hers, but now he knew the answer to the question. His life as a soldier and a king was made up entirely of choices, and sometimes making choices against another’s will. Arthur could not bring himself to overpower her despite the fact that he could. He could not bring himself to seduce her with empty promises, nor threaten the life of the tree. He waited to see what Leila wanted, to see what she would choose, if she would choose him.

Leila’s lips were on his.

Then, she was gone.

“To choose,” he said. “The power to choose.”

Written by: Natasha Akery

Photograph by: Angela DeRay