Day Fourteen
After an exhausting morning at the grocery store, I was able to enjoy a lovely spring storm that unfortunately ended too soon and didn’t give us enough rain. Still, it helped to perk up my mood at least a bit, since I love storms, especially spring storms. Since I was inside by the time it started raining, and could choose whether to get wet or not, it was the perfect sort of storm. Now the storm is over, and it is as quiet as a church outside, giving me the peace I need to write. So here it is, another essay.
I GUESS I HAVE TO SAY THIS AGAIN
It was the 1970s, and a glorious time for Women’s Lib (which it was called back then; I never hear that term anymore). A little girl was confused. On the one hand, these wonderful women were taking steps and making progress to gain rights for women equal to those enjoyed by men. Her future looked much brighter as a result of them. On the other hand, her mother, her teachers, her church, her television…everything, including movies and music…were presenting an ideal of womanhood that didn’t fit with the goals of Women’s Lib. It seemed a woman could be everything she wanted, but she had to do it wearing high heels, make up, perfectly coifed hair, and carrying trays of cookies or cinnamon rolls for her man to enjoy. Her mother told her women were to stay home, have kids, and make sure their husband got the credit for any ideas they had.
At that time, there were certain wardrobe choices associated with women. The little girl had to wear dresses or skirts to school; the boys were wearing jeans and t-shirts by then, the requirements for shirts and ties long since scrapped. Girls found novel ways to play in the uncomfortable and limiting outfits, and many of them wore shorts under their skirts in case they decided to hang upside down on the monkey bars. The school she went to did not relax the requirement for skirts and dresses until the mid-1970s, and then only for pantsuits and matched coordinates. The girl was in high school before she was allowed to wear jeans and t-shirts to school, but once that was allowed, few of the girls bothered with the old garments; they wanted to be comfortable.
Fast forward fifty years; that girl has grown up to be me. Over the years, I have adopted a number of styles of outfits, changing as the world changed and as I changed. For a brief period, I re-adopted the “feminine” look, because I married a man who wished it. Without being aware of it, I had become a trophy wife. Meanwhile, women were experimenting with many styles. Hem lengths moved up and down with the times, but pants became more common than skirts. We came a long way since Katherine Hepburn was told to enter the back door (servant’s door) of a hotel if she wore pants.
Now the girl…who was me then, and is still me…is confused all over again. I continue to see a trope being spread as gospel on the internet. It is one of my least favorite tropes, and for someone with as many least favorite tropes as I have, it comes amazingly high on the list. The trope? That little girls who don’t express standard gender expectations (in other words, tomboys) will grow up to be lesbians. Seriously?
I know, Fox News, right? Probably. I couldn’t say, since I don’t watch Fox News. I don’t have a strong enough stomach for that, and I think I’m allergic to mis-information, which is one reason I am writing this column. No, I am hearing it on left-wing websites, especially those that are concerned with the rights of gay men. I suspect the reason they have adopted this mantra is that it fits with the idea of being born gay. Okay, but you can be born gay without everyone else having to conform to a stereotype.
Why does it matter? So what if people insist on claiming tomboys will grow up lesbian? I don’t have anything against the idea that someone will grow up lesbian; it’s just biology. I don’t care if someone thinks I’m lesbian because I’m wearing pants. I know who I am, and if they want to label me as someone else, I’m not offended (unless they label me as a Trump voter; I would be outraged immediately).
There are two reasons I care about this. The first reason is simple: because it is not true. Truth matters; without truth, we are just floating in the ozone without any anchor. We can’t know anything, including whether to leave the house through the door or the window, or whether it’s safe to put our hands inside the air fryer while it’s turned on. Truth is what makes things work. It tells us that vaccines are effective, that fluoride can prevent cavities, and that tomboys don’t always (or even most of the time) grow up to be lesbians. I know some people will say ‘science’ and ‘studies’, but I’m not going to rehash that again. Go back and re-read yesterday’s column.
The second reason is that it is restricting women in a way we’ve fought for years against being restricted. It says there is a right way to be a woman…two right ways, actually. One for lesbians and one for straight women. That’s just plain silly, but it also has dangerous implications. It cedes an important part of the argument to the other guys (you know, those guys over there on Fox News, and the ones who watch Fox News). It means millions of women are doing woman wrong…not just straight women who prefer comfort to femininity, but also those lesbians who prefer feminine to butch.
I decided it was time to return to my old friend, Google. Since so many people get all or most of their information from Dr. Google, I assumed I would be regaled with all sorts of sites instructing me about the ‘science’ and the ‘studies’ that ‘prove’ (you DO NOT want to get me started on ‘prove’, I promise you) that tomboys grow up to be lesbians. To my surprise, I didn’t find that. There were various answers, but this is the one that stuck out: “No. Being a tomboy is primarily about rejecting the social norms that you don't feel comfortable with yet. It's a bit like holding on to the sexlessness of childhood longer. It's not usually related to sexuality.” Good for you, Google…or, in this case, Reddit, since that’s where the quote came from.
Playing with “boy” toys is the same thing. To put it quite bluntly, “girl” toys are boring. Dolls? Tiny brooms and dustpans? Tea sets? Send them back to Hasbro®, and give me a chemistry set or Lincoln Logs®. Barbie Shmarbie. Put her on a shelf to look pretty…or leave her at Toys ‘R’ Us®.
Girls who dress in jeans, climb trees, and wrestle are not tomboys; they are girls who express themselves as they prefer. I was not a tomboy, but I wasn’t feminine, either. I was, I guess you could say, a nerd. I had my nose in a book most of the time, and while I often read outside, I never figured out the art of climbing trees, so I remained on the ground. It wasn’t because I was feminine; it’s because I’m a klutz. I have known a number of tomboys…and also a number of effeminate men…and with one exception, none of them grew up to be gay. And that’s okay…because in a world where women are free to be who they are, and men are free to be who they are (within limits; we definitely need some sorts of restrictions if who you are is an axe murderer), no one would think anything about it if a girl showed up at her prom in torn blue jeans and a t-shirt. Well, maybe not nothing…but they wouldn’t assume she must be a particular sort of sexuality.
And that’s how it should be. Please don’t make me have to say this again.