I Don’t Need Your Permission to Be A Woman With Hobbies

Something that people always say is, “Not enough women are in STEM! You should be in STEM!” or “Not enough women are proud of their muscles! You should be proud of your muscles!”

The thing is, I don’t really care for STEM, and I’ve never had the discipline to build up more muscle. I have every right to prefer English over math, to not lift weights, and to do what I’m comfortable with.

That being said, if I want to be a bodybuilder or a wrester or an athlete, I’ll do that, too.

The key is not to resist the masses, nor is it to join them; it’s to be your own person.

A lot of people get confused. They think that the opposite of conformity is refusing to do everything that the majority does, because the majority does it. That’s just conformity to anti-conformity. Anti-conformity can mean dressing in all black and dark makeup, or hiding in the corner and not talking to anyone, and those are stereotypes for a reason: because too many people do it. True nonconformity means doing things that appeal to you, regardless of how many other people do it. Don’t “resist the masses” just because; resist the masses if you feel like they are doing something wrong.

If everyone is playing Fortnite, playing it doesn’t mean you’re unoriginal or average or a conformist; it means you feel like playing Fortnite. If no one is playing Fortnite, playing it does not make you original or special or anti-conformist; it means you feel like playing…