Tomboy; n.;
I've been called a tomboy all my life.
How did I ever get stuck with the stereotype in the first place? Maybe it was Dad's oversized cast-off t-shirts that I wore when I went to play outside. Maybe it was the super-short hairstyle I always seemed to have back in the day. One may never know.
I mean, sure, I played with Barbies and had a kitchen set, but I mostly used the kitchen set to prepare slightly ambiguous amalgams of mud, flour, leaves and other oddities. And the Barbies? I'd arrange and rearrange them until I'd get bored and drive my Godzilla through their living room.
I took Bharatanatyam lessons. For almost a decade. Yeah.
[I even wrote an exam, so I'm an official senior, or something.]
Whenever we put on performances, I usually played the male god, or, the villain, or the demon who has an intense battle with the hero[ine] and eventually gets slayed. Once I did get a chance to play a female, but I turned it down and asked to play a male instead. Why? Because the male dancers get a moustache drawn on their faces.
A moustache!
Right. Before I wander off into the faraway kingdom of repressed childhood memories, let me just cut to the chase.
I never was the 'typical' girl. Never wanted to be her. I just wanted to, teeth-gritting-cliches aside, be myself. You know, the kind of kid that could play Dress Up with the other girls and Mortal Kombat with the guys, without getting labelled.
But no. Of course not. I got the tomboy label slapped on my forehead for everyone to see. And with the label came all the expectations demanded by society of me.
"I shouldn't play with dolls. Because it's girly", "I shouldn't wear skirts. Skirts are for :girls:" et al.
Um, Society? Hello? The last time I checked, I was still very much a human female.
And once you get labelled, everything you do begins to reflect upon it. :Would a tomboy do this? Would a tomboy wear this?:
Even now, when I dress up for some occasion and look at myself in the mirror, a tiny voice at the back of my mind goes "Why am I dressing up all girly?"
I feel like a fraud. A liar.
Like a dude in girls' clothes.
Basically, the point is that labels, for lack of a better word, suck. The world can do without them. There's this whole fancy notion of what a :real: girl or guy should act and think like. A standard. A blueprint. Any failure to conform to the said blueprint earns you a stupid label that makes us seem so...ordinary. It's a cryin' shame.
Maiti out.
A girl who dresses and sometimes behaves the way boys are expected to, often into more masculine things like "stronger" sports, computers, or cars.
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I've been called a tomboy all my life.
How did I ever get stuck with the stereotype in the first place? Maybe it was Dad's oversized cast-off t-shirts that I wore when I went to play outside. Maybe it was the super-short hairstyle I always seemed to have back in the day. One may never know.
I mean, sure, I played with Barbies and had a kitchen set, but I mostly used the kitchen set to prepare slightly ambiguous amalgams of mud, flour, leaves and other oddities. And the Barbies? I'd arrange and rearrange them until I'd get bored and drive my Godzilla through their living room.
I took Bharatanatyam lessons. For almost a decade. Yeah.
[I even wrote an exam, so I'm an official senior, or something.]
Whenever we put on performances, I usually played the male god, or, the villain, or the demon who has an intense battle with the hero[ine] and eventually gets slayed. Once I did get a chance to play a female, but I turned it down and asked to play a male instead. Why? Because the male dancers get a moustache drawn on their faces.
A moustache!
Right. Before I wander off into the faraway kingdom of repressed childhood memories, let me just cut to the chase.
I never was the 'typical' girl. Never wanted to be her. I just wanted to, teeth-gritting-cliches aside, be myself. You know, the kind of kid that could play Dress Up with the other girls and Mortal Kombat with the guys, without getting labelled.
But no. Of course not. I got the tomboy label slapped on my forehead for everyone to see. And with the label came all the expectations demanded by society of me.
"I shouldn't play with dolls. Because it's girly", "I shouldn't wear skirts. Skirts are for :girls:" et al.
Um, Society? Hello? The last time I checked, I was still very much a human female.
And once you get labelled, everything you do begins to reflect upon it. :Would a tomboy do this? Would a tomboy wear this?:
Even now, when I dress up for some occasion and look at myself in the mirror, a tiny voice at the back of my mind goes "Why am I dressing up all girly?"
I feel like a fraud. A liar.
Like a dude in girls' clothes.
Basically, the point is that labels, for lack of a better word, suck. The world can do without them. There's this whole fancy notion of what a :real: girl or guy should act and think like. A standard. A blueprint. Any failure to conform to the said blueprint earns you a stupid label that makes us seem so...ordinary. It's a cryin' shame.
Maiti out.
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