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| the icebox |
they called me a tomboy.
i wasn't really sure what this meant. i was gangly, with hair always in a ponytail, ball cap, jeans and a tshirt (usually a baseball jersey - think becky 'the icebox' o'shea from little giants) running around with the older boys in my neighbourhood. those were the only people around. i was the scrawny little kid that annoyed all the big kids. who wanted to climb the same trees, bike just as fast, throw a football just as well. and got pushed to the side time and time again.
i was raised to legitimately believe that there was no such thing as a difference between girls and boys (obviously until i got to that point where it mattered). girls could do anything that guys could do. i guess coming from a family of three girls, with sports addicted parents, and a social worker mother, has its implications. it wasn't until i hit about grade 3, that i realized something was off.
when playing with kids during recess, i wasn't 'allowed' to play with the boys, because they were more 'rough'. it also wasn't until this point that i was aware of being called a 'tomboy'.
"Football is all very well as a game for rough girls, but is hardly suitable for delicate boys." —Oscar Wilde
i spent the next 6-8 years of my life, with headgear, braces, glasses, lanky legs, and that same baseball hat. needless to say, self esteem is still taking some time to build, after years of being just one of the guys.
what is it about a small kid, that requires them to be gender selective? a young kid with a big attitude and some guts must be a boy. if not, they're not feminine.
"After a brief grace period, when she would be called a tomboy and allowed to play second base, a girl has traditionally been subjected to heavy social pressure to withdraw from athletics. "Sports was the laboratory where they turned boys into men," says Penn State Psychologist Dr. Dorothy Harris. "As for girls, they were supposed to stand out in the hall, quaking in their tennis shoes. The penalty for daring to take part was to be labeled unfeminine, a social deviant. What is considered healthy psychological development in a man—aggressiveness, independence, ambition, courage, competitiveness—was viewed as unhealthy in a woman. Yet it is precisely those qualities that are found in every athlete, male or female. Whatever it is that works for little boys also works for little girls." —an excerpt from Comes The Revolution, Time Magazine, June 26, 1978."(via tomboy style)
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| from tomboy style |
i can be just me. i can like to wear makeup and dress up - to go watch a hockey game, and ignore all conversation going on around me. i don't fight anymore - i used to try to determine if what i was doing was masculine or feminine. now - i don't care. it's just me.
why do we care so much about definition of gender? the he. the she. the male. the female. the masculine. the feminine. things can't just be what they are.
so i'm learning to just let me be me. let my personality traits be their own - not masculine, or feminine. the fact that i rarely cry is not masculine of me - it's a product of my upbringing, and makes me who i am. my affinity for sports doesn't make me one of the guys, it just makes me, me.
and my love for a short, sequined dress, or a low cut collar - that will ALWAYS be just me.
“I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.” —Louisa May Alcott