Don't Call Me a "Mommy Blogger"

I have never really liked being a girl. Wait back up- I liked BEING a girl, just never liked being segregated for it.

My first of a million examples: In second grade I went storming into Mr. Green’s office (our school principal) and protested the fact that I was told I was not permitted to play soccer with the boys at recess. Not because they were excluding me, but because the teachers on duty said I wasn’t ALLOWED to play with the boys. I was instructed to play with the girls. The girls who didn’t really play hard or to win. They were playing for the heck of it.

I was anything but a normal kid, so this kind of ‘rule’ pretty much put me in a tizzy. I was a straight-A student, over achiever and the teacher’s pet by anyone’s interpretation – but when it came to telling me I was not qualified to play with the boys simply because I was a girl? Oh this was not acceptable.

Happily, Mr Green agreed to make an exception – provided I wore shorts under my dress to school. And there I was for the rest of my elementary school recesses, wearing shorts under my dresses and playing soccer with the boys. And although this tiny discrimination barrier had little to no effect to the other girls (who shockingly had no interest in playing with the boys), it had a tremendous impact on me. In my 40 (cough, choke, ahem) years, I have refused countless times to be defined by my sex. I don’t want special treatment, special teams, special organizations. I want to be judged against my peers. And if my peers happen to be men- then so be it. After all, what good is being the BEST at something if you are only being evaluated by a limited bracket?

So it is for that reason that I denounce the term “Mommy blogger”. I refuse to let the productivity of my womb determine my job title or creative category. I don’t want to be known as the best WOMAN in social media, the best WOMAN in marketing or even the best FEMALE writer. I simply strive to be the best. And well, if that means going up against the big boys- all the better. To this day,if you tell me ‘I can’t’ because I am a woman, I will tell you ‘I CAN. AND I WILL’.

Incidentally, the upside to the recess victory? I was very popular with the boys. And I know this – because despite being fairly awful at soccer – they asked me to play anyway for years.

Marcy Massura is a speaker, humorist and author of The Glamorous Life Association. To learn more about her, please visit Marcy Writes.