I have always been a bit of a Scrooge at Christmastime, especially when it comes to Christmas music. I can tolerate it and even get into the spirit for the week leading up to Christmas, but other than that, I can’t stand listening to it. Of course, when I was young, I looked forward to opening gifts and spending time out of school. We always visited my grandparents, and there was often snow on the ground for sledding. I have generally happy memories associated with Christmas.

And yet, I find myself increasingly dreading the holiday.

I don’t think it has much to do with Christmas, honestly. What isn’t there to love about a consumerist holiday veiled as religious celebration? It probably has a lot more to do with traditions and a culture surrounding it that feel more and more foreign to me as I distance myself from my upbringing.

On September 22, 2016, almost exactly a year ago, any weight your opinions may have held in my life vanished.

I do a lot of reading, specifically blogs, news articles, editorials, etc. Most of what I read I get from my Facebook feed. I was scrolling a few days ago and this article caught my eye. I couldn’t get it to load on my phone at the moment, so I moved on and forgot about it (much like the instances discussed in the article itself, ironically).

Today, it popped up again, this time shared by a friend with her own personal stories of male harrassment and living in a patriarchal, sexist culture attached to it. I was inspired, probably impulsively, to write up a small collection of my own stories. There are plenty more that I could tell, but these are the few that stuck out to me.