Being called the M word can be as shocking as finding your first gray hair. Inside Amy Schumer’s head writer and executive producer, Jessi Klein, offers up some solid alternatives.
Like all women, I started out life as a “miss.” “How can I help you, miss?” “Miss, you dropped a dollar.” “Miss, can I buy you a drink?” “Excuse me, miss, I’m interested in having sex with you.” Everyone wants to be a miss. Miss means you have more in common with Audrey Hepburn than not. Miss sounds like you’re mostly air, like your body has the magic and delicacy of a wind chime, and when you walk down the street, everyone hears little bells.
I don’t remember the exact place or time I was first called ma’am. Which means, on some level, I must have blocked it out. I remember I was around 30 and it was a complete surprise. In my mind, I was still wind-chiming around town as a miss. And then some waiter, or maybe it was a bank teller, looked me up and down and decided I was a ma’am. I didn’t expect to be called ma’am any more than I expected Clive Owen to walk in and demand we have sex. In that moment, I felt very viscerally the beginning of something slipping away: not just the possibility of fucking Clive Owen but something bigger—my image of myself. How was I being perceived as a ma’am? And just what is a ma’am, anyway? And why was I so upset?
This story is from the August 2016 edition of Cosmopolitan.
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This story is from the August 2016 edition of Cosmopolitan.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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