When I was a kid, I officially did not want to be a "girlie girl." The books I read always had boyish heroines who played sports and climbed trees. I actually suck at sports—Ma despaired of my inability to catch a ball, unlike her—and I didn't really understand the need to climb a tree.
Also, to my detriment, I had a weakness for Barbies—but I will contend that to this day, I have an aversion for the color pink.
I tried my best to be a tomboy in every other way, which meant wearing my brothers' outgrown sweatshirts as casual attire. I was so lame.
I refused to wear makeup to Luke's wedding, when I was 15. That would definitely make me a girly girl! Although my gown was magnificent and I had flowers in my hair and sparkling jewelry. Eye pencil drew my imaginary, arbitrary line.
At some point, I stopped fighting. Sephora was calling to me. Clothing that fit was calling to me. Pretty shoes were calling to me.
I was reminded of my evolution by this article, "Like Tomboys and Hate Girlie Girls? That's Sexist." The author, a feminist that also used to eschew "girlieness," now finds herself stumped by a 6-year-old that loves pink, Barbies, and froo-froos. She realized that by welcoming her older daughter's tomboyish tendencies, she was still valuing masculinity over femininity.
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| Via AlexandraJustineChapman |
Additionally, there are plenty of (straight) men who have what could be considered feminine qualities (like a fondness for hand cream), for which they have been mocked.
As the author, Lisa Davis, explains, makeup is not about being alluring to men. If anything, the majority of my dates found my Face horrific. Rather, it is a "fun and creative form of self-expression."
Especially since the arrival of a number of "girlie girl" nieces, as well as others who are not, I've comprehended there is no right or wrong way to be a girl. As long as "like, whateverrrrrrr" is not part of their lexicon.
It feels like men are given a wider 'menu' of life choices than women, and are less stigmatised if they ignore all of them and do what they want.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of being effeminate? Or you mean in terms of everything?
ReplyDeleteEverything really. I guess what I meant is that there's a wider range of 'acceptable' non-stereotypical masculine behaviours. I always read a lot as a child and wasn't terribly sporty, but I wasn't exactly labelled as effeminate and not because no one wanted to apply negative labels to be, because they did, just other ones. But more generally there are, if you like, more stereotypes for men. If you look at high school age, guys have the sporty 'jock' (in US speak), the geek, the slacker, the cool-type person, the completely off-the-rails disruptive types and various grey areas between these whereas girls seem to be limited more to girly girls and tomboys and maybe geeky girls, but not much else. Though I'm probably out of my depth here and maybe over-thinking what was an impulsively-written comment.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting... I've been reading a lot lately about high-functioning autism (what used to be known as Asperger's Syndrome until they discovered that Asperger was a Nazi) because I think I'm on the autism spectrum, and it's interesting that women with autism are understood very differently and are probably under-diagnosed. No one knows if the differences are inherent in how autism presents in boys and girls or if that they are socialised differently. For example autistic girls are better able cover their lack of social intuition with cognitive skills, learning how to hold a conversation, whereas autistic boys would be more likely to just go off by themselves and no one knows if this is because autistic girls have an inherent ability to do this or if they are just socialised that girls have to be talkative, so they have to learn workarounds, whereas boys are just left to walk off and obsess about trains or whatever. I think the presentation of 'special interests' where autistic people have strong and sometimes idiosyncratic hobbies, is different in men than women too. This is an area of interest to me as I think in some ways I present more as an autistic woman than a man (e.g. I've cognitively learnt a lot of social skills to cover for my lack of social intuition) and that's why my symptoms went undetected for so long.