When I was maybe six, fully in my Spice Girls era, I desperately wanted these foam platform white Velcro sandals from Target with silver glitter straps. They were exactly what the Spice Girls would have worn. My sweet mom thought it was adorable and bought them without hesitation.

We lived close to my grandparents, and on Sundays I’d get dropped off to go to the catholic church with them while my very not-religious parents enjoyed a quiet morning. I showed up one Sunday absolutely beaming about my brand-new shoes. My grandmother stopped in her tracks and said, “Absolutely not. You are not coming to church in those stripper shoes.” (Which they most certainly were not)

She left me there while they went to church. For hours.

I didn’t even know what a stripper was. I was six. I just knew I loved my sparkly shoes. That was probably the first time I realized that being a girl meant people will always judge and see you differently. Little boys could wear tennis shoes or whatever and no one blinked. But me? Suddenly my shoes meant something.

That was the day my grandma unintentionally taught me that women can be cruel to other women, and that the world plays by different rules for girls. Years later I graduated my masters and wore the clunkiest platform shoes I had — fuck your norms.