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Women in Politics? I thought. Sweeet. That's gotta be an easy credit; all I hafta do is watch my pronoun use and bemoan how busy the men's room must be on Parliament Hill and I should have no problem.

It wasn't quite like that.

Dr. G. was a ball-buster. If she were standing over my shoulder right now no doubt she would tsk-tsk me for using such an adjective, that make-up-less sneer of hers drilling through me as though I were a topless stripper who was only in university to meet some sugar daddy so I could spend the rest of my days eating bon-bons on the couch while my husband's soldiers took up permanent residence in Château Womb. But it's the truth. Though Women in Politics was an easy credit - if only you spit back at Dr. G. what she spit at you - it wasn't an easy class. And Dr. G? BALL-BUSTER.

It wasn't easy for a nineteen-year-old girl who lived the life of luxury to hear that she was thought less of in the world because of her gender. It wasn't easy to hear that the colour of my skin was part of the problem, since just who did I think would be Windexing my panes someday when I was at work, marking up the glass ceiling there with my attempts to break through it? And it certainly wasn't easy to hear that I would never truly understand, because I didn't suffer beatings at the hand of a man, and I would probably never be a single mother standing in line in -20C weather, and my most private parts would most certainly stay in tact throughout my lifetime instead of being cut away from me. How can this person tell me what I understand about gender, and what I don't? I AM a woman, after all. I seethed. I was just as hostile as most of the men were in that class.

I felt threatened.

The truth is, I still find it hard to reconcile my beliefs with Dr. G.'s hardcore brand of feminism. I don't truly agree with it, because look at my life: a challenging and fulfilling career, an Adoring and Wonderful Husband who cooks for me every night, a beautiful baby boy who will find it hard to believe someday that daddies sometimes hit mommies, because it will be something completely outside of his experience.

But sometimes daddies do hit mommies. Even if we never truly understand it, it happens. And we can't forget it happens. Not every girl can grow up not being able to truly understand what it's like to be lesser, but every girl should be able to. This? I understand. This? I remember. This? It might just be what Dr. G. was getting at all along.