I know you've probably realized that by now. I am definitely a girl. I don't leave the house unless I've at least employed the use of my eyebrow pencil. I enjoy shopping for clothes, though that doesn't happen very often. I read and read and read and read (not sure if that's considered a girl characteristic any more than a personality trait). Not gonna lie, I still once and a while got out my Barbies when I was 13.
I believe I have much to contribute to society. I have the potential to start college as a sophomore. I'm glad that I have been blessed with the opportunity to attend college, when I know a lot of other people don't. I plan on going to college, getting my bachelor's, and maybe getting my master's. I don't want anyone to prevent me from following my dream or telling me how to live my life. But this is the pressure I feel, that I have to be wife and a mother because I am female. I have to be beautiful and pretty and confident.
I am still not a boy.
Ability and knowledge are not gender-inclusive. It doesn't matter if you have a Y chromosome or another X one. You can be who you want to be. You may be a band nerd, a computer geek, a football player, a ballerina. Your genetic profile doesn't change your hopes and dreams and abilities. YOU are what changes your hopes and dreams and abilities. And sadly, society and culture do too.
Have you ever seen a boy in ballet? You may have, you may have not. It's not as common, since ballet is almost universally considered a "girl" activity. Have you ever seen a girl playing football? I have. She was my best friend. It's not as common, since football is also almost universally considered a "boy" activity. Most of the time you just don't see a girl try out for your local high school's varsity football team.
My friend was strong-willed and filled with vitality. Her step was always filled with vibrancy and energy.. She was what brought life into my surroundings. She was the kind of person who would make you not just feel like you were alive, but make you feel like you were actually living. Almost every day during recess in 5th and 6th grades, she would be out playing football with the boys. She would always joke around with them at school and act so comfortable around them. And while I was playing on the swings with my other friends, or doing whatever most of the girls did, she would always happen to be out in the field playing football with the boys.
My friend was not a boy, either.
One time I confronted her about it. I was mad that she spent so much time playing football and never wanted to play with me and all of our other friends at recess. She replied that she loved playing it, and that she was sure that I could find more people to play with my group of friends, but she wouldn't stop. I eventually learned to respect her choice, and I always ended up laughing at the funny exchanges she would have with the boys during class. It was almost as if they were all her brothers.
I remember that at one point, the boys started wondering why she was playing football with them, and that some of them didn't like that very much. When they told her that she shouldn't be playing anymore, my friend wasted no time in taking action. She started a petition that stated that it was perfectly fine for girls to play football. She had a bunch of people sign it, including neighbors, friends at school, and I think even the principal. Eventually, the guys didn't really care if she played football with them or not, and the petition didn't matter anymore. But she, even in grade school, knew that if someone judged her because she was waltzing across cultural divides that were meant to separate the genders, that was their problem.
I am not friends with this person anymore. Her strong-willed personality and my stubborn personality made us love and gravitate towards each other during the end of grade school, but caused some differences that I wish could have been resolved. Still, I see her in the halls at school almost every day and sometimes wonder, "Does she still have that same outlook on life? Does she still believe that she should be free to do what feels best for her, whether it's
I grew up in a typical Mormon family. Stay at home mom, dad that worked from 8-5. Girls grew up and became sewing, cooking, loving mothers while boys became the head of the home, the bread-winner. I remember my brother's favorite color being red up until he started going to first grade, where he learned that red was a girl color, and that his favorite color should be blue or green since he was a boy. I remember being that evil older sister that could coerce her little brother into doing almost anything, including suggesting he play "Superman" at the park in his underwear (don't EVER ask Kevin about it unless you want another homicide in the ranks), or most importantly getting him to dress like a girl. We have pictures of it, and my mom and I sometimes joke that we could use it as blackmail if we really wanted to.
But is that so bad? Little children are born with a clean slate that eventually ends up getting filled and filled as they get older and as time goes by with rules and most importantly, ideas and expectations. The little girl realizes that her mother dresses her in pinks and purples a lot (with a few butterflies and flowers thrown in) and gets her hair done in cute little braids. She has dolls and stuffed animals and Barbies galore, but then turns around to find her little brother playing with dinosaurs and cars. Why doesn't she have the dinosaurs and cars? Why do dinosaurs and cars have to be boy toys? Why doesn't her brother ever get Barbies for his birthday? Things like these slowly start forming in a child's mind, and they learn. Children go to school and their eyes are opened to the true social norms of the world.
The moment a baby is born and pronounced a boy or a girl, its whole life is laid out before him/her. We immediately start assigning pink and blue bows, stating how beautiful your baby girl looks or what a handsome little guy your boy's going to turn out to be. Little baseball or foot ball shirts are collected and Daddy's Little Princess shirts flow freely It is normal.
Ideas are impressed on them that the boys in the next grade up play sports like football and baseball, and that those older girls on the swings at the playground take gymnastics or piano lessons. Everyone wants to belong and fit in, so we gently and effortlessly try to conform to our gender's standards.
Well, at least, most of us. Then there are the few exceptions.
In 7th grade band, no boys played the flute. It was a girl instrument. We were all the epitome of femininity. Then, when we arrived in high school we realized that one of the senior boys played the flute in band, and was pretty dang good at it. He was the son of our town's counseling/therapy center founder, so we knew that with a guy like that as his dad, he was probably well-adjusted, even if a little bit weird for playing the flute. He was extremely nice to everyone, and the point is, we respected him, just like we respected my friend who played football every day and hated wearing skirts for being herself.
And then the struggle continues. Us girls try to fit into the standards that we need to be rail thin, or at least have airbrush-sculpted abs and a push-up bra that advertises our... you get the picture. With highlighted hair flat-ironed to a 375 degree crisp, the latest skinny jeans or maxi dress or lace top, Victoria's Not-So-Secret bra and underwear and eyelashes coated over and over again with black sludge, we need to look pretty. Beautiful. Sexy. Feminine.
The sporty, athletic girls, gum chewing in mouth, have their straightened and styled hair in a ponytail or artistically messy bun, iPhone in hand, wearing a see-through tee over a tank top, yoga pants that show off their long shaped and shaved legs, and bright-colored Nikes. The punk or fashion statement girls wear side-parted, hairspray-poufed/curled hair, ripped shirt with usually not more than a bra under it, bright or dark skinny jeans and any kind of shoes you can imagine.
The guys wear a cleverly-conceived Nike or Under Armour shirt, athletic shorts or dark-wash jeans, Nikes within the color range of neon yellow, neon orange, blue, or black, and gel/mousse styled into their hair. They need to not only look or act cool, they need to be cool. Sexy. Suave. They need to feel it.
We have to be perfect. We have to be liked. We have to be feared, for being feared is so much better than to be afraid. We have to try and claw our way to the top to prevent from being stepped on in the bottom. We have to stab others in the back and put them down to drive the incessant insecurity back down into its gilded, shiny box, always threatening to emerge.
We are Prozac Nation, the laser-brightened teeth smiling and smiling and smiling, clear blue eyes wide and open and strained and occasionally red from the tears that illegally surface.
We are America's teenagers, suffering from the gender roles and expectations that are pushed on us that try and make us seem perfect. We are victims of our own X or Y chromosomes.
Eventually, every once and a while, someone turns their head around slowly, in the hallway at school, at church, at work, on the street. They look around as if they have been woken up for the first time, and finally realize what they are ultimately seeing beyond the superficiality.
They see human beings, eyes clear and knowing or clouded and confused, walking away, trying hurriedly to get to their destinations. They see a person with feelings, with a heart, with a moral compass that sometimes doesn't match up with the brain. They see a person whose dreams sometimes don't coincide with reality. They see a person who just wants to be loved, to be liked, who is finally just so tired of being alone.
They reach out and see past the bright appearel or masculine look, the smile or the frown, and see what that person truly is.
Everything.
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