That's the difference between a real journal and one that's invented for a novel. A novel journal has to be manipulated so someone reading it can have enough comprehension, which means the person writing it would've had to have a sense of a someday-audience.

In college, unable to be "special" - or in demand - as a girl, I made myself useful, even essential, in my microcosm - as a writer and photographer for the band, particularly for the band director. My "specialness" was to produce something of value, not to look like something (with that different kind of "value"), so I was still fundamentally invisible, but had a significant purpose.

Everyone I know, men and women alike, would love to see the world changed so that boys and girls, men and women are valued equally for what we contribute, despite the differences in how our brains and bodies work.

Girls are not just put on earth for men's amusement while they do the important things.

I think a certain kind of sexism is so matter-of-fact, and has been for so long, that young women feel less valuable or second-tier if their gender and attractiveness or sexual desirability are not being commented on in the workplace.

If sexuality is beginning in such a skewed way: that boys expect to receive sexual pleasure and girls are expected to give it without reciprocation, is that why young women, even unintentionally, turn to getting something else in return for sex? Whether it be popularity, career success, professional attention.

I always expected my work to be what was noticed, appreciated or what would eventually succeed, not my sexuality.