Feminism From the Back of the Bus

I’m in my 6th class (final grade) of primary school in a small village in Ireland. I take the bus home to my granny’s house everyday and sit beside a group of male classmates. Most days I’m the only girl our age on the bus –the eldest. It’s a primary school rite of passage to sit at the bus’s rear in sixth class because you’re officially older than all the other kids (a bit ageist, I know). Sometimes a girl in our class takes the bus too, but she never sits at the back making me the only one who will. There isn’t even another girl for at least three rows of seats.

I get taunted by the boys for a number of reasons. Most of it takes place on the bus, out of the reach of teachers: My participation in track in field (I ‘steal’ the medals apparently); The shoes I wear are practical and plain, not ‘girly’; I’m reaching puberty and unfortunately the beginning of acne is showing; I’m developing breasts (yes, eleven and twelve year-old boys are capable of sexual harassment); And of course I INSIST on sitting at the back.

The boys will even place their bags on the seat next to them if it means less or no room for me. I am not wanted. Of course I want to be part of this rite of passage, not because I want to sit with the boys who clearly dislike my persistence, but because that’s what I believe to be fair. I’m just as old as they are.

Childhood Kate didn’t understand why she was bullied. Adult me might be just as wrong, but I have theories. Sometimes I wonder if it was a grudge held against me for fist fights with the boys when we were in third class. I even consider if I was actually a bitch and have wiped all my dark devious deeds from memory.

I speculate if it was because I was one of the only girls who played sports – and happened to be good at them. I question if it was because I was bright – I definitely tested better than most of my male counterparts. I wonder if it was because I was ugly, or didn’t fit into any conventional idea of a pretty girl. My best friend had blonde hair, blue eyes and loved pink. I was a redhead with green/hazel eyes, the first signs of bad skin and green was (and is) my favourite colour. Finally (around about the time I classically ‘blame their parents’), I think of my resistance to go with the flow – to sit nearer the front with the younger children.

I wanted my seat – I still do.

I attended an all-girls secondary school after that. I didn’t do what the queen bee politely suggested. I didn’t hang out with the ‘clique’ if I didn’t agree with the schoolgirl politics, but preferred to pick and choose a few gems from each group whose weird humour tickled my fancy.

I wasn’t part of the ‘in’ group with the 16-going-on-26 make-up and attire, nor did I broadcast the loss of my virginity to the masses via the grapevine of resident gossip girls in biology. I wasn’t the smartest, the prettiest, the most athletic, the best behaved, the most popular: I wasn’t even the grungy ripped-tights ‘outcast’ who smoked weed on the hockey pitch. My type of femininity wasn’t an agreed upon ‘thing’, yet it exists everywhere, under the various veneers. I am me – an individual – just like and unlike everyone else. Conformity for conformity’s sake wasn’t going to appeal to me now, not after that bus seat.

You’re probably wondering why I mention these different ‘types’ of girls. The fact remains that women can be just as sexist towards other women as men. We judge each other for our appearances, our views, our choice or lack of choice of a career. I do it too. I compare myself to other women all the time, finding myself better or worse according to some in-built ‘catalogue of female brilliance’.

I have to be able to do everything from ‘Apple Tart of the Year’ to ‘Zoologist-cum-astrophysicist-poet-laureate-chick’. Yet, I curse the double standards that exist between men and women. Nothing irks me more than when my mother tells me it sounds bad when WOMEN swear or that I shouldn’t drink pints, even if I reason that they’re less alcoholic than wine or spirits. Also the belief that men have it as easy-as-pie doesn’t wash with me. Historically it has been ‘women and children first’.

In secondary school I still shared a bus home with the boys from my village. My acne worsened and I was teased more maliciously as puberty finally paid them a visit. I’d love to say I stood up for myself one day and they all chose to ignore me afterwards. I retaliated on many occasions, but I was never ignored for it. If only!

This isn’t a story that ends with me giving those guys a sharp piece of my mind that quietened them forevermore. I stopped taking the bus, because I could see no end. I never told a parent or a teacher, pride perhaps – or even denial. The bus driver didn’t turn around to tell them to stop. A few times an older boy or girl would stand up for me. A few times an older kid would join in.

Of course I’m taking a very ‘first world’ and personal approach to feminism. I can only write from my experiences and my voice isn’t one of a Saudi Arabian woman who’s not permitted to drive. My point is this argument starts much younger than one might think it does. If not a bus seat, a right to drive a vehicle, to wear whatever one wants, to vote, to stand up and be counted, even the right to your individuality.