What was your first "feminist moment"?

[Starry Messenger]

15. Probably when dad told me that college was useless for women

We'd just be getting our "M.R.S." degree. He said that in 1988, wtf?

I have another good story that's kind of complicated. I was dating a painter in college who was hot shit on campus. I painted too, but since my major was in Ceramics, he was sort of paternalistic about it, which should have set off alarm bells early on, but I was in looove. I would do some paintings at his studio while he was painting too, he gave me some pre-treated canvases and I did some little still lives.

He had another hot painter on campus come over to look at his paintings. She was someone I really admired too, but I wasn't invited to be present, since I wasn't a painter. Anyway, long story short, she spent an hour raving over my paintings and really critiqued him negatively. About 48 hours after he told me this story with rather a bemused air, he broke up with me over the phone. He didn't say that was the reason, of course, but since we weren't fighting or any other thing, his "it's not you, it's me" reason rang a little hollow.

He now just paints as a side pursuit and is kind of a wunderkind in the electronic games world for design.

I'm not sure if that's a "feminist moment" or not, but it's always kind of stuck out in my mind.