Girls Like That

by Evan Placey

Nipomo High School - 2015

Reading A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf when I was just entering college, I was filled with a fury. Unbearable outrage at my gender, my race. An unbearable anger at “the way it has always been,” a status quo complacency at injustices dating farther than recorded memory. Going forward I was determined to pursue the cracks in such entropy, to become a voice for the unrepresented, to ensure those without a presence in the conversation – whatever it would be and however it manifest itself – had an undeniable and powerful footprint on the future. The anger of my youth has not subsided, but rather transmuted into a fuel for each day, each new fight, each moment when I can tackle the inequities which continue, maddeningly, to be systemic and whose time has come for dissolution. This play will, I hope and pray, bring you into the world in which our students discover themselves, and this glimpse brings the potential and invitation for change. I have been inspired by many women through my life, professionally and personally, and most especially by their ability to merge seemingly boundless compassion with a drive and creativity more palpably resilient than most men I have known.