My Introduction as a Mythical Creature

There really are too many labels and stereotypes crowding today's political and social discourse.  To bridge the gap between these groups is often thought impossible.  (A Republican feminist?! Nay, I say! Nay!)

I am eager to defy this overwhelming tendency to categorize and restrict beliefs to some spot on an identity spectrum.  By having read the title of my blog alone, Reader, I am sure this comes as no surprise to you.  And I like to think that right now you are following my words with sincere curiosity as to how I plan on defining myself.   Getting it out of the way:

•  21 year old, female university student
• Middle-class, Christian, Army brat of two veterans
• Born and raised in New York

 These little facts all say "something" of me -maybe that I am not so sure about comma usage, or that my religious and military backgrounds color me conservative.  For the moment, I am choosing to focus on the latter.

Now it could be true that I am moderately conservative because of those things, but there is a problem with this common assumption.  The institutions that propagate the belief that "military" and "Christian" go along with conservative would also have you -a general "you" in this sense, Reader- think that I am also certainly pro-this and anti-that.

Even more defining than religion or background is my sex: a young woman.  That says a lot about me.  Beyond the gendered things (such as being addicted to a cell phone, apparently mandatory), being a woman says that I have a strict biological purpose, and that all of my actions inherently revolve around that impetus.  Any noticeable accomplishment -whether applauded or abhorred- to go against this goal is picked at and analyzed and questioned to the nth degree.

When I say "questioned" here, I am referring to the reporting done on any given topic.  How the media, from news to marketing, presents and responds to events and trends, and what existing presumptions are used as contrast.

It is not just the media that draws lines so readily.  Politicians do the same and, even more egregiously, use the lines as a sort of unifying banner.  The Republican Party is the patriotic party!  The Democratic Party fights for women!

Well, they are not, and they -shhhhh- don't actually care that much.  

My blog as my digital soapbox, I will explain my own label and confront those already established for me. Occasionally I will prove to be extremely typical, I am unsurprisingly young and progressive, I suppose, but there are a few I would like to dispute.  The point of argument might fall under political, economic, social, and religious spheres, or touch upon all and more.

--Wait, nah. Just kidding.  I'm too busy texting for this sh*t.

:)