Being bullied and called a tomboy or a lesbian or worse because I didn’t wear make up or paint my nails with glitter etc. And wasn’t submissive and starstruck around anything with a y chromosome. I did find during high school that the girly-girls were afraid of me, and some of their name calling and other idiocies was because I didn’t conform to a gender stereotype that they were fully invested in. They couldn’t take it that I wasn’t falling into line with their very bi-polar gendered view of the universe. Didn’t help that they were from much wealthier backgrounds and ‘higher’ social status (at least in their own opinion), so they felt they had a right to dictate everyone else’s behaviour. Being a fair bit smarter than them didn’t help either - but did eventually allow them to label me a ‘brain’ and therefore outside their gender norms.
And they were majorly pissed off with me because most of my friends were boys. Who talked with me like I was one of them and we liked each others company but didn’t flirt. When I got married I got a fair few letters from the girly-girls (this was before texts) expressing surprise that I’d managed to be ‘normal’ enough to marry.
One of the positives of this was that I learned early to store my identity inside me, rather than in the clothes I wore or the things I owned. Not being a girly-girl didn’t make me a boy or a lesbian or anything really, but it did take a bit longer to find my niche, as back then there was a hellava lot more gender stereotyping pushed onto girls. Not so much of that nowadays for which we can all be thankful.
Miniest may have a harder road to travel, and may never find instant unthinking broad community approval cos there’s still a fair bit of stereotyping out there. But I’m also sure that Miniest will find a way to be herself, and to do that in style!
Thankyou for sharing your experiences, I’ve experienced just a little bit of that wealthier class judgy normy girl expectations stuff and my god can they be bitchy! I’m loving how in this thread we’ve all been through painful experiences but all come through it with our own strength of opinion about ourselves and our identities and what works for us.
Went through something like this myself.
personal experience
Being bullied and called a tomboy or a lesbian or worse because I didn’t wear make up or paint my nails with glitter etc. And wasn’t submissive and starstruck around anything with a y chromosome. I did find during high school that the girly-girls were afraid of me, and some of their name calling and other idiocies was because I didn’t conform to a gender stereotype that they were fully invested in. They couldn’t take it that I wasn’t falling into line with their very bi-polar gendered view of the universe. Didn’t help that they were from much wealthier backgrounds and ‘higher’ social status (at least in their own opinion), so they felt they had a right to dictate everyone else’s behaviour. Being a fair bit smarter than them didn’t help either - but did eventually allow them to label me a ‘brain’ and therefore outside their gender norms.
And they were majorly pissed off with me because most of my friends were boys. Who talked with me like I was one of them and we liked each others company but didn’t flirt. When I got married I got a fair few letters from the girly-girls (this was before texts) expressing surprise that I’d managed to be ‘normal’ enough to marry.
One of the positives of this was that I learned early to store my identity inside me, rather than in the clothes I wore or the things I owned. Not being a girly-girl didn’t make me a boy or a lesbian or anything really, but it did take a bit longer to find my niche, as back then there was a hellava lot more gender stereotyping pushed onto girls. Not so much of that nowadays for which we can all be thankful.
Miniest may have a harder road to travel, and may never find instant unthinking broad community approval cos there’s still a fair bit of stereotyping out there. But I’m also sure that Miniest will find a way to be herself, and to do that in style!
Hugs to both of you.
Thankyou for sharing your experiences, I’ve experienced just a little bit of that wealthier class judgy normy girl expectations stuff and my god can they be bitchy! I’m loving how in this thread we’ve all been through painful experiences but all come through it with our own strength of opinion about ourselves and our identities and what works for us.