Britni de la Cretaz

There’s nothing wrong with moms who decide to go for a stereotypical “mom cut.” If they like it, or if it makes their lives easier, that’s fantastic. Personally, my hair after I had children remained just as important to me as it was before I had them. My hair has always been a huge part of my identity — candy-colored, funky, and so totally me.

It’s bad enough when I’m street harassed out by myself — I feel vulnerable and deciding how to respond can be hard. But it gets really complicated when I’m harassed and with my child.

This ad is the furthest thing from funny. It’s not humor, it’s not satire, it’s just plain distasteful. Good humor punches up. But there’s no humor to be found in an issue that, according to the Center For Disease Control, killed 47,055 people in 2014. Of those over 47,000 people that died of a drug overdose, opiates — like heroin — were involved in 61% of those deaths.

While this is not about my or White people’s feelings, this is about White people’s violence. As White people in this country, it’s on us to dismantle White supremacy. Both the problem and the solution lie with us. This involves talking to other White people in our communities, having hard and uncomfortable conversations, examining and confronting our own privilege.

When I first got sober, I was resistant to a lot of the things I was hearing in 12-step communities and recovery circles. I’ve always been a feminist and much of the rhetoric I was hearing seemed to go against everything I stood for.

I want my child to be able to self-determine. What that means to me is that they know they have options besides the “default” one that’s plastered all over their TV screens, and that they always know that.

I know you’re probably wondering how that happened, so I’m going to tell you. (You’re welcome.)

The first sign that something was wrong was the weirdly watery discharge. I'd never had vaginal discharge that looked like that before, and considering I'd just finished my period, the large-ish amount was confusing to me. But everything else felt fine. So I put a pantyliner on and went about my life, thinking it would stop soon.

"Go ahead, call me a bitch. It’s one of the nicest things you could say about me."

Women have changed their last names from their father’s to their new husband’s — a tradition that used to symbolize the transfer of “property” from one man to another. That property, of course, was the virgin bride. Many people will argue that it no longer has that implication, but for me, as a feminist, partaking in a tradition that is so rooted in the literal oppression of women is something that left an incredibly bad taste in my mouth.

“My name is Britni, and I’m an alcoholic.” I’ve said those words more times than I can count and they’re always met with nods of recognition and assurances of “me too.” I’m also a survivor of rape and sexual assault, and it’s a big part of my addiction story.