Assumptions about role models

I’ve noticed that many people I come across have a hard time seeing a teenage girl with male role models as legitimate. I stopped being open about my admiration of a male artist because of the reactions I got — "Because he’s so cute, right?" "Aww, so you have a little crush on him?" etc. I’d thought this experience was behind me until a few days ago.

I posted on Facebook a link to something written by Carl Sagan. A friend of my dad’s (who always butts in on anything vaguely controversial with his poorly spelled/grammatically incorrect opinion) commented, expressing his disagreement with the subject matter. I made a respectful counter-argument, and we actually had a fairly painless exchange for a few messages.

It was all going uncharacteristically fine, and then I replied with a relatively lengthy message about how much I admire Sagan and how lucky I feel that this essay allowed us a glimpse into his mind. He responded with this gem: "lol, we all know you have feelings for him."

Because God forbid a female should have any interest in an admirable male figure unless it’s because of her cute lil’ crush on him. Especially a man of math and science — that stuff is way too brain-hurty for us girls! I only watch ‘Cosmos’ for all the shots of Carl Sagan in that sexy, sexy beige turtleneck, after all.