Change Starts Here

There’s something infuriating about a woman who tries to act stupid.

I saw a girl ask how to plug in a radio and then act giddy while reading the “Hello” that flashed across the speaker’s LED screen. It may not have bothered me if she hadn’t just plugged it in nonchalantly an hour before with no problems when she didn’t think anyone was looking.

Is it that hard for us to let people know we have brains? That we’re worth more than just a laugh?

It may be cliché, but there are millions of women who will never have the chances we have. We get to go to school and become professionals. Just learning to read is something millions of women dream about, but never achieve. Instead of embracing our educations and striving to learn as much as we can, we pretend to be stupid.

We can name the last five songs Plies had on the radio, but don’t know what “eccentric” means. If we do know the meaning of a word, we hold back. You get labeled as the “smart girl” if you know too much, so we sit back and feign confusion just to fit in.

I’ve done it before. I got tired of carrying the “smart girl” label around. People were always asking me to help them with homework and papers. A lot of people I knew didn’t really speak to me until they needed help with English.

You should be proud of what you know, strive to learn more and share your knowledge with others. Don’t hide in sea of stupidity that you created for yourself.

So what if you’re the “smart girl.” It’s way better than being the “dumb blonde.”