“What’re you a girl now?”
For some reason, when I wear pink I get this question. I don’t think I dress like a man, I don’t think I act too manly, but when I wear pink, those guys closest to me ask why. If I wear black, I’m not asked if I’m going to a funeral. I think it’s really unfortunate that some colors are pigeonholed into being one thing, typecast into that one role they only took because their agent thought it would be their breakthrough. Orange and Black had struggled with their boldness and finally found the part of a lifetime in Halloween, only to be abandoned the rest of the year, but that’s another issue entirely. The subject at hand is why (oh why!) am I not thought of as a girl by some of my guy friends.
I must admit first and foremost, that I do not help my valiant cause. I always push away from “girly things” but in truth, I can’t stand to not have my nails painted. Unfortunately, I work at Woodworth, the campus dining hall that insists that even though I’m wearing gloves, a tiny bit of my nail polish could chip off, work its way down my tight and sweaty plastic hand casing and fall into an innocent patron’s food and killing them in a dramatic show of anaphylactic shock. Hence, while I’m on Ball State’s campus, my nails are free of any of the beautiful colors and lacquered shine that make me smile. I also wear makeup regularly, blow dry and straighten my hair, and cook, all marks of a true woman. According to Wikipedia, a reputable source if I’ve ever heard of one, cleavage is seen to be a sign of femininity, and I certainly don’t shy away from that. As a 20 year old when else will my breasts be so damn perky?
From the outside, I am, if not the picture of femininity, a shining example of the average girl. Until I open my mouth, and words come spilling forth, free from any sort of filter or forethought. I’m the one who takes the perverted joke one step too far, to that awkward laugh-less no-man’s land where jokes go to die. I’m the one who not only makes the jokes that much more perverted, but in such a way that you need to visually map out the logistics and anatomy of such a scenario. It might be my negativity; I’m not the bubbling ray of sunshine that my sister’s sorority friends seem to expect. An even better explanation may be that I don’t really like girls, all my friends are guys, I have maybe a handful of good girlfriends, and one is my sister. I’m ok with that, but it is inconvenient.
I have to wonder, what exactly is the definition of femininity? Why are some girls considered feminine and others not? The majority of the definition in America is physical appearance. It’s not fair to those poor lazy girls who can’t drag themselves out of bed to straighten their hair and meticulously apply makeup. Girls who don’t wear makeup and do their hair in the morning are judged as being lazy, at least by me, honestly it’s not that hard, and it doesn’t take that long. My attitude makes me part of the problem, those that give in to the pressures of society just end up perpetuating them. I don’t really see this as a bad thing in moderation. It’s just a general respect for yourself and your self presentation to the world. Who doesn’t like beautiful people?
Girls are expected to be positive, smiling and happy, willing to brighten your day with some inspiration drivel about how it takes more muscles to frown than to smile. I, personally, enjoy the work out. Is anyone really impressed by those inspirational Facebook statuses? Did you know that great girls don’t have boyfriends because girls are like apples? Yes, apples. Apparently, all the rotten apples fall on the ground and the lazy boys pick them up because they’re easy. The beautiful, perfect apples on top feel like they’re not good enough but in reality, a wonderful boy hasn’t come and taken the effort to climb the tree and pick those perfect apples. I don’t get it either, don’t worry. I’d rather be a juicy juicy mango, or grapes, who doesn’t like grapes?
It just seems as though girls play into an image of being positive and naïve. It’s very possible my pessimism is to be blamed for my equating being positive with being naïve, but either way the woman is supposed to be the hope in the hopeless, the light in the darkness, the pimento in the olive, the little thing that makes it all better. Jiminy Cricket may help Pinocchio figure out what to do, very unsuccessfully might I add, but it’s the beautiful Blue Fairy who makes that happy ending possible. She magically glows appearing in Pinocchio’s most desperate moments, an ethereal beauty wasted on a wooden boy.
We can look at the naïve Little Red Riding Hood, gallivanting through the forest to see her geriatric grandmother. When meeting a wolf she thinks nothing of it and picks some flowers while he runs to the grandmother’s house, terror ensues. Recently, while driving around Muncie at 2 am, two guys came running up to my car while I was stopped at a stop sign. I cracked my window down and they begged me for a ride to Riverside. If I had given them a ride, would I have been overtaken on the drive, savagely murdered and cut into little pieces to be neatly deposited in black Hefty bags? Probably not, but unlike Little Red, I’m not comfortable with those odds, my friend, however miniscule.
I think the heroines of our stories now are no better. I have never pretended to be a fan of the Twilight series, because I think it’s much cooler to not like it, so why pretend to? What disturbs me is the fact that this piece of teen harlequin romance-esque “literature” is giving out terrible messages for girls. I also must admit, that I hate giving a lot of credit to the media for shaping our children. It’s the parents responsibility, but you can’t chose your kid’s friends, and if those friends have idiot parents who think Twilight and its bastard siblings are worthy of the small attention span their children have been able to cultivate, then it just might rub off on your children, despite your best efforts. But I digress, in the second book in the Twilight “Saga,” Bella, the pale, limp, personality-less main character is dumped by the equally devoid of personality, Edward, but he’s just so damn sexy who cares? After a few days they fell madly in love and when he dumped her for reasons I don’t feel the need to know, she is so distraught that she goes to any lengths to get him back. Does she say, write him a love letter expressing her feelings? Make a personal appeal, telling him how much he means to her? Or does she do what Stephanie Meyers would do, throw herself off a cliff in the hopes that Edward will swoop in to save her? Is this the new feminine ideal? The beautiful Bella, while different from our typical woman by being depressed, is still helpless and borderline pathetic while at the same time being certifiably insane. With role models like this, I’m glad to be a little androgynous personality wise. We can do better than this ladies, or am I just being too optimistic?
