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My relationship with my body and feminity has its roots in disconnection and not hatred, but maybe more of an underlying annoyance is more appropriate. Certainly not love, or appreciationâŠ.
I was an active kid, definitely a tomboy, as some of you may have seen in my # WhenIWasAKid posts. Always running around outside, digging up bugs, playing sports, climbing trees. I loved being outside and coming up with outrageously creative games for all of us kids on my block, of which I was the only girl.
I never noticed, my neighborhood friends were just that, my friends, and I was certainly brought up to believe girls could do anything boys could, but as we grew older we all grew apart, and I spent more and more time inside and with female friends. Itâs really not the way I would have preferred. I remember being FURIOUS about being told now I had to be on the all girlâs softball team when I was a damn good short-stop playing baseball. But at that age, girls and boys start dividing up into groups I guess, or rather adults and society start dividing them- boys and girls occupying opposite ends of the gym at school dances like in movies. Looking back, I guess I felt a bit lost in the shuffle.
Not internally. I always knew I was female, and felt comfortable with that. But I NEVER wanted to be perceived as âgirlyâ âditsyâ âweakâ or âdumbâ. Growing up with sayings like âyou throw like a girl!â or âyou play ball like a girlâ being the HIGHEST of insults⊠I knew I needed to be better at most things than most boys in order to be taken seriously.
In my opinion at the time, most of my female friends acted like total idiots in order to get the attention of boys, which kind of made me want to be around them even less. I was interested in things like makeup, painting my nails, etc, but I wanted to be able to express it in my own way.
In terms f role models, there werenât many strong female figures on TV or in movies for me to be inspired by. You see, although the 80âs were all about the âWorking Woman in a Manâs Worldâ most strong protagonists were just women who used their sexuality to get what they wanted.
Wow, just.... wow.
I guess thatâs what started my secret war on femininity, or my rebellion rather. I wasnât close with my mom, no sisters or close female family members and my inner circle of female friends were weird and artsy like I was. Sure we talked TOGETHER about boys we had crushes on, but we thought it was lame to be so outwardlyâŠ. girly. Ew.
My relationship with my mom was always strained, we werenât close at all growing up. She struggled with anxiety and depression throughout my childhood and teenage years, she spent a lot of time not being herself now that I think about it. I donât feel like I really got to know her or understand who she was until I was an adult.
As I grew older, started to take an interest in boys, but I wasnât willing to fawn over them and play the damsel in distress that my friends were. Being a bit of a class clown, I had friends in all the groups at school (though my outward appearance leaned more toward the punk rock, ska kid persuasion) but I never âfitâ with any group, and even then, most of my closest friends were the guys.
I even had female friends caution me that because I kept my car keys on a carabiner clipped to my belt loop, that people would think I was âYou know⊠a⊠LesbianâŠâ (As if that were the worst thing a person could be, how silly). I just didnât want to keep loosing my keys! Which I was CHRONICALLY prone to doing.
Itâs not the first or last time I heard things like that, when I was older I found out that my best friendâs family asked her if she had a crush on me, because we were inseparable, and werenât publicly fawning over boys, we didnât have Dawsonâs Creek heartthrob posters up in our bedrooms, and we werenât begging our parents to take us to boy band concerts.
When I was young I liked Weird-Al, making things from Duct Tape, and British show called Junkyard Wars, where two teams would have to make machines to fulfill crazy challenges, all from things found in a trash heap. Now THAT was my kinda show.
As I got older, I got friend-zoned a LOT by boys, and the girls werenât much help. â Some of the advice about how to deal with one of my first BIG crushes included:
- âdonât pick up when he calls you, guys like to chase a girlâ
- âdonât let on you like him, or want to spend time with him, itâll make you look easyâ
- âyou could be so pretty if you justâŠâ * insert any number of things here *
- âyour eyes are so nice, why do you always wear glasses??â
or one of my PERSONAL favoritesâŠ
- âstop being so funny, guys like to be the funny onesâ*
LOLZ.
I felt a lot of my adolescence and teens trapped between what appeared at the time to be only two choices- Hyper femininity and a genderless, or masculine version of myself that felt like I was also suppressing a big part of me as wellâŠ
I wasnât sure how to be myself, and express who I was because I thought there were only two categories and I only fit into one. Now, I read stories, watch interviews and see articles about how the LGBT community feels about being squashed into rigid gender roles and I canât imagine what they go through on a daily basis.
Here I was, a straight, middle class, âwhite girlâ, who just didnât want to subscribe to hyper-femininity, and at times, I really felt like an outsider. It was tough, but not a fraction of what others go through every day, not feeling at home in their own bodies, it gives me a lot of compassion for those who feel displaced, like they donât belong, like theyâre âotherâ.
One day, when I was young, about 7 or 8, I remember playing in the yard on a Saturday afternoon while my Dad was talking to an older friend of his in the driveway. Iâm not sure at all what they were talking about, I was doing what little kids do and not bothering myself with boring adult conversation, but I remember the man sayingâŠ
âLetâs hope your girl marries rich that way you wonât have to worry about her!â
My dad replied without skipping a beat âThat girl! Psh! Sheâs a genius! She wonât be needing anyone to take care of her!â
I remember smiling, happy my Dad had my back, but I didnât realize at the time that those words planted a seed deep inside my heart and my mind. Itâs the reason why I wasnât willing to act weak, or dumb for others when I knew I was strong, and damn smart and funny! Itâs why that felt so wrong!
It wasnât until I was in my late teens that I started to be able to mix up my own batch of femininity. No one ever told me I could take what I wanted and ditch what I didnât until I discovered Descartes and his rotten applesâŠ
âIf you are worried about rotten apples in a barrel, you would be well advised to tip out all the apples and examine each one before you replace it in the barrel. Only if you are certain that the apple you are considering is sound should you put it back in the barrel, since a single rotten apple could contaminate all the others. â âRene Descartes-
To paraphrase the French philosopher, Life is a-la-carte friends! If it doesnât serve you, let it go, because the rent is too damn high, and I HAVE HAD IT WITH THESE MOTHER-F-KING SNAKES ON THIS F-KING PLANE!!!
Something like that ;)
The way I started to express myself was no longer rooted in rebellion because I realized that acting out of rebellion, is another kind of prison. At the end of the day, youâre still allowing your actions to be ruled by someone else.
Instead, I just slowly started asking myself what I liked, what I wanted and what I thought was interesting and ditched the rest. I realized that I could still be smart and funny and boys would still like me. I could be into all my nerdy stuff, and still, make things out of duct tape and I realized that it was OK if I didnât fit into any group at all.
I realized it was ok just to be me.
Feminine ideals and appearances are a moving target anyway friends! Donât even get me started on the ways corporations profit in the ways they make us feel insecureâŠ.
I know thatâs all much easier said than done and everyone has to find their own path. There were a lot of awkward years, a lot of frustration and heartache and feeling uncomfortable in my own skin in those moments when I tried to be the version of female I thought I should be.
This is not the post I was planning on writing today, but Iâm glad it made itâs way out there. Apparently, I had some thoughts that were not willing to wait in the queue, so here they are.
Part story, part encouragement, as much reality and honesty as my tired Sunday brain could muster. I hope this little blip of experience and memory finds you well and leaves you encouraged.
Please be you,
The success of all of us here on planet earth depends on it.
<3
Dayle
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