How many were labeled "Tomboys" but the name didn't set right? How many of you balked at the differences you were told to respect?
My dad said it went back to my birth. "You came out the chute going, 'Oh, Yeah?' and you've been saying it ever since." He was so refined, my dad.
I do know that ever since I can remember I felt as if I never got it "right." I did not know how to be a girl "right." That's a sad thing to feel, but as I look back, it stood me in good stead, except in my love life. And, well, my love life was one confusing fiasco after another--but it was never boring!
My Blasphemous Youth--We're talkin' REALLY "Youth"
When I was told "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son," my first question was why wasn't it a girl? My Sunday school teacher had no answer and was annoyed. My minister talked about how long ago baby girls were killed at birth because people valued sons. And then I learned, that this still happened in the world, even in the 1950s! And it was a shocking revelation.
I had overheard my mother and father over breakfast. As was my custom, even when I was school aged, I would wake up when Daddy changed from hot water to cold in his shower. After I heard him go downstairs, I would follow with some book and curl up on the end of the couch closest to the kitchen. Mom and Dad discouraged me from joining them because this was the time they had together without everyone around. What they didn't understand was that this was my time to be near them without everyone else around, too. So form me, the compromise was to be very still, and read on the couch. They knew I was there, but a)they often forgot that I was right there,and b) they would forget that I listened to their conversations. And that day, I heard them discussing some country that killed unnecessary girls. Unnecessary girls?
I was already on overload of school admonitions that "boys will be boys," and "Really, Jeannette, can't you play with the girls just once?" and "Well of COURSE your dress is dirty when you insist on playing kickball instead of jumping rope like a good girl!" I was already fed up with having the teacher calling on Walter first, even when I raised my hand first. It seemed as if the boys always got to do the really cool things first. I hated it. And I had already decided, in all humility, that every girlfriend I had and I were smarter than the smartest of the boys. Unnecessary girls?
This put me over the top. I leaped up and bolted into the kitchen, knocking inot mom's chair as I rounded the table corner to stand between them. I could feel the heat of my face. "I bet God had tried to give begotten daughters a few times, but people were so mean and stupid they drowned the babies at birth! God just gave up and tried a son, so maybe someone would listen. NO ONE listens to GIRLS!" I pounded the table and knocked over Dad's creamer, which he caught in an unusual demonstration of manual agility. He was nonetheless stunned silent.
Mom reached over and stroked my tear-heated face. She did not correct me though. Instead, all she did was open her shining blue eyes wider, smile a little sadly and say, "Honey, I never thought of that. I wonder how many people have thought of that." She barely brushed a strand of hair wandering across face, using one finger. I could feel my lower jaw trembling as I tried to unclench it.
"Dear, you just be Jetty. We understand that you don't like girls' games. We know you hate dresses and that you don't understand why boys seem to get all the fun. You are a tomboy."
I was only seven at most, so that word only made me vaguely uneasy. Eventually, however ...
I was not an Anything-BOY!
After a few more years of being called a Tomboy and being told that most everything I did for fun was wrong, I Snapped one day. "I'm not Tom. I'm not a boy. I'm a girl but I don't LIKE doing all those things everyone tells me I'm supposed to like. I DON'T! WHY isn't that OKAY? I just like what they do better. BUT. I. AM. A. GIRL!"
Daddy said, "Okie doke, Snigglefritz."
Mom smiled.
They never called me that again. Breakfasts with me around must have been such a relaxing treat.
I have no doubt at all that there are many women over fifty who resented being told we must wear dresses and do girl things when we were at school. Or under fifty, for that matter. I know that the word "tomboy" is still used, though there are not the gender restrictions on clothing or on what girls choose to do on the playground.
What we did have that are a thing of the past were handwritten comments on every single quarter of our report card. And while sometimes teachers did write nice things about my grades, there were, every single year of my childhood, the following comments:
- Jeannette pays far too much attention to the boys at recess.
- Jeannette seems to have trouble accepting her role as a girl. (REALLY. This was in third grade)
- Jeannette spends too much time with just one other girl, alone and removed from her fellow classmates.
- Jeannette is too bossy.
- Jeannette tries to answer too many questions, without waiting her turn to be called on.
- Jeannette does not participate appropriately in class.
- Jeannette needs to remember she is a girl and that kick ball is not an entirely appropriate recess activity for her at school, as she wears dresses and can get a little rough! (That was first grade)
Dreams Dashed
I believe I have mentioned some of this before, but it fits in nicely into the discussion. Y.A. Tittle, a quarterback for the New York Giants, was one of my heroes. I'd found some black and white picture of him and put it on the wall above my sister's and my desk. By third grade she was off to college, so she didn't care what I put up. I also had a picture of Sam Huff, who was with the Giants first. He was a star.
The guys likened me to him when we played touch or flag football, and called me the blitzkrieg. Jerry Griffin, the fastest of our gang of twelve, used to smirk at me when he would run away to try to pass to one of his brothers. He said I was like a bulldog because I would doggedly go after him. I was not fast, but I did not give up, and I was agile, so a change of direction did not stop me. So when they said I was like Sam Huff, I thought it was a compliment.
A girl I knew said it was because I was chunky and that hurt me, and I thought maybe I was all wrong. When I told Jerry, five years my senior, he looked upset and he pat me on the head and said, "No, Jet. It's because you are a really good player, and you get in the way of every play I try to make. You're a little blitzkrieg. Don't listen to them."
By fifth grade, however, my mother put an end to my play and my career dreams all in five minutes. She had been watching us play and noticed that the boys' "Touch" had a little too lingering a quality, she said. She told me that life was hard, but sometimes a girl really could NOT play some games with the boys, and that I was too old to play football with them. I knew what she meant, but I was mad anyway, and would not talk any more about it.
Then I blurted somewhat desperately, "But if I'm going to be a linebacker, I gotta take it, Mom."
She simply looked at me. "Excuse me?"
"Yeah. I'm going to be like Sam Huff."
"Oh, honey. Oh. No, you can't do that. You--"
I burst into tears. I remember the day so clearly. I leaped out of the kitchen chair so hard, the chair flew backwards into the sink. I could not look up and simply focused on picking up that chair. "Right. GIRLS DON'T PLAY FOOTBALL. Right. Okay. Right. I can't be a major league football player. Right. Okay."
I think my mother was as heartbroken as I was. She did not laugh at me. She stood there, as did I, sort of limp, just looking at one another. We never spoke of it again and I never played football again.
It was when I really began to notice how unfair it was in our culture to be a girl, and the resentment set in: Thanksgivings of being stuck polishing silver while the boys watched t.v. with dad; the hatred of Easter dresses, hats, white gloves; the fact that Daddy didn't want Mom to work, even though she wanted to; the way it was considered such a big deal when I beat Walter doing the number facts, talking about a girl beating the boy, almost as if I were a freak. Dozens of things, blatant and subtle.
I did not resent the boys for it; I did resent my teachers. Oddly enough, I didn't hide it very well. I'm sure you all find that hard to believe...
Yet I do wonder why my sister never minded any of it. One day when I was perhaps thirteen, I pointed out to her that Jim was given a later curfew than she had been, and she simply shrugged and said it was because she was a girl. I believe I made a rather rude sound, accompanied by swearing.
She laughed, shook her head at me and said, "The difference between us is that I never met a rule I did not follow and you never met a rule you were not tempted to break."
"ONLY when it's a STUPID rule," I snapped.
Imagine how delightful I was when the dating years began a couple of years later!
That's for another day...
*** Wonderings ***
I do wonder whether others of you were acutely aware of gender expectations as kids? I'm not looking for an equal rights diatribe. I guess I can't help but wonder why it bothered me so, as it bothered others of my girlfriends. We girls in my elementary school, wound up filling half of the top twenty spots in our class of over six hundred in high school. (Our town had four or five elementary schools.) No one spoke of women's rights, but we did hear about civil rights a great deal. My mother helped organize a sympathy march in our town, since most of the moms could not attend any Civil Rights march in Washington. But my rebellion began young.
I don't believe I was that special in noticing these things. I just don't. And if any of you have stories of your own confusion about these things, I would love to read them. I know that guys found me, well, odd, to say the least. Off-putting is putting it kindly. As I said, that's for another day, perhaps. It's the childhood memories that I wonder about--whether other boys and girls found it as confusing and, well, wrong as I did in those days before the Movement.
That's all for today.
I lied. I'm finding the comments really interesting--as interesting as the blogs of the commenters are! It feels like an actual discussion, even though I have an outdated format. Anyway, I DO love it when people comment about their--your--own histories and feelings. Sometimes a post is just as much, to me, about the readers' experiences as mine. Okay, NOW that's all for today. Happy March.
18 comments:
"Jeannette does not participate appropriately in class" - that sounds like a real gender-based judgement. I suspect my wife had th same thing written on her report cards. She was a 'tomboy'. I think it may be why some feminists went 'over the top' in the 1960s and who can blame them.
It worked the other way, of course, and if a boy was not into cars and football he was a 'cissy'. Art was for girls and woodwork for boys. Never mind if you were all fingers and thumbs with a chisel but could paint. And cooking! No chance. Domestic science was for girls so they could become good housewives. The idea of a man having to cook for himself never seemed to occur to those who made the curriculum.
Hopefully lot of the steroetyping has disappeared but I suspect in some areas of Liverpool a boy who wants to learn ballet or to cook has a pretty hard time of it.
Scriptor, I feel that the gender stereotyping is just as horrible for boys. My nephew does not let most classmates know he takes violin. He has never told them he took tap for six years. It goes on today across the pond, too. I think with the political climate here, that I fear a return of such things with a vengeance.
But I find it interesting that my friends and I felt this BEFORE we ever heard the word feminism, before the Civil Rights Movement was on the nightly news.
I flunked apron-making. Seriously. I could not sew in "home economics." We could not take shop. They could not and never WANTED to take home ec.
What a world it was...
I wasn't so great in home economics either but boy I could catch a football from a distance. I think it's still hard to grow up now as it was then due to bullying or trying to fit in. Being called a tomboy never bothered me. I grew up in the country climbing trees dreaming.
Oh yeah, I was a feminist child long before that term existed. I thought it was very unfair that boys had all the fun, excitement and adventure instead of girls. I knew girls were just as good as boys although I was taught otherwise. When I finally did hear of the "women's lib" movement and feminism in 1970, I knew immediately that I was a feminist. I was 13. I've been a feminist ever since, LOL!
Music, I see evidence all the time that it is just as hard today for different reasons--although bullying was in full force when I was in school, by both girls and boys. It's just that no one talked about it. I think the difference today is that things are in the open at last. Perhaps that's a step at least. I'm not sure... I sure don't think your lives are easier!
Debra--You are a mere child, I see! I was 18 in 1970. I do remember when I finally knew something about the movement, I got FURIOUS and disgusted at people focusing on Bra-burning for crying outloud. And my first job out of college, on the first day everyone gathered round my desk to see whether I would use Ms or Miss on desk name card. Men and women alike, TAKING BETS. I looked at the guys' cards. Joe Whatever. Bob Whatsit. I said, "Jeannette LeSure." There was a two beat silence. Then laughter. Not ONE woman in the twenty-person department had ever thought to simply leave the title off altogether! I was considered ahead of my time for doing what the guys did.
In the seventies it felt to me that women were getting bogged down in the little stuff. Bras. Ms. Writing "wimmin" instead of "women." It made me nuts. I was stuck in a job where the guy hired two months before me, with NO more qualifications than I, was paid about $1200/year more because, and this IS the truth "You will get married and quit." It was 1974, just before federal laws changed such blatant discrimination.
Oops. That's another story, isn't it!
I read a lot of Victorian literature and I think the feelings you had not only pre-dated the use of the term feminism but so did those of some Victorians. It's sad that some of the best expression of it is only to be found in fiction because that's a sphere where women could express what they really felt and still be doing something acceptable to the male world - after all, fiction could be by women because it was seen as being for women.
In your reply yot my comment you said "I think with the political climate here, that I fear a return of such things with a vengeance." Politics is usually something I keep clear of but I have to admit that over here, no matter which party is in power, the climate is actually improving and many employers are not just accepting the equal pay legislation but absorbing the ethos thst created it. It is very far from perfect and top jobs are still largely a male preserve but I think it's getting better and children's programmes on the BBC suggest that children are being accepted as young people rather than boys or girls. I'm sorry (and surprised because you are usually ahead of us in these things) if it is not improving in the U.S. at the moment.
I was sent home from kindergarten (aged maybe 5) because on a very cold and wet day my mother had sent him dressed in trousers. And after that day (which I remember well) I was constantly looking at the different way we were treated, not only at school but in the wider community.
In High School girls were not allowed to do any of the electives that involved working with power tools. Or welding. And when I asked why I was sent to the head master who told me I would 'ruin my pretty hands'.
So, yes, way before I knew the word I was a feminist.
I was brought up in a house where both parents always worked. My fathers salary was probably equivalent to 250K now but there was no way he would try to stop my mom from working. I was always shown that women do as their abilities allow. She rose to the top of er field by the time she retired.
I will say this though that my father HATED that I would sit for hours and write rather than even try to learn to throw a or catch a ball of any kind. Just wasn't my thing is all.
Walking Man--that is a wonderful thing to read. My dad regretted his "Idiot attitude" as he put it, toward Mom's working. My mom was too tired to fight it back when I overheard them. But I love the fact that you were raised that way.
I find it interesting to read the stories.
E.C.--sent home for NOT being subjected to frost bite. Nice. We wore corduroys under our dresses, then had to hang them up in the cloak room--yeah. No one wore cloaks, but that's what they called it--to wear for recess and to go home. Boys just threw on their jackets and mittens and took off...
I hated the word tomboy as well- why wasnt i just ME? Now I was born in 1974 for some perspective. At the time my mom thought it was great though and I even had a boy at my 2nd grade bday party and my BFF in 1st grade was a boy. I was a campfire girl rather than a girl scout because it was closer to what boy scouts did (lots of time outdoors!). My mom was a self proclaimed feminist who worked & we were latchkey kids. She took college classes. Then she married a republican. When I was 10 she quit her job to be a 'homemaker'. Mind you two of three kids had moved out & I was entering junior high. Hmph. She did a 180 and served him after that, something I never forgave. I was the only kid to finish college.
(Oh and the blatant sexism in christianity and most religion is why I've always stayed far away)
Fascinating post and discussion, Jeannette. I was born just after WW2 in a working class family in the north of England. I was the second of 5 sisters and never once do I remember being told by my parents I couldn't do something because I was a girl. Mind you, I was a sickly and very unsporty child who always had my head in a book, but my parents, neither of whom had had a high school education, always supported our ambitions and 4 out of 5 of us made it to university and the 5th became a registered nurse.
At school there were the usual divisions along gender lines in craft and sport, but this was the 1950s and things had changed hugely by the time my children went to school.
I still remember, however, going for my first job interview after I graduated from library school in 1973 and being asked what my childcare arrangements would be. I ber they didn't ask the men that!
as much as i would reject the term tomboy, i would reject the term feminist, and i would opt instead for humanist, or human, or person, or me. i was always an odd duck, perhaps tomboyish, and never much caring to be put into any category. i don't think anyone tried very hard. they all gave up on me quite early. that seemed to serve me rather well.
also, i had the luxury of growing up on the coat tails of the feminists. they had made much ground for me in the world, had destroyed many walls, opened many doors. while i'd not consider myself a feminist in particular, but rather someone interested in equal rights, i do owe feminists a great deal. if i'd have grown up a few years earlier, as you did, i think i'd have been throwing a few walls down myself. well, i suppose i still do in my own way.
xo
erin
Well said, Erin. I think I would now call myself a humanist rather than feminist, but part of this has to do with the times in which I grew up.
When I first was introduced to the term, probably about 1969, I had thought it was about equality. Humanism was already a term with which I identified, but feminism was new. It was specically about equal rights for women.
So I could be both. Then I felt that the feminist movement as it was expressed by more radical proponents got bogged down in things I just did not care about. Not even a little. Wording. Bras. Even disparaging women who WANTED to be home to raise their children.
And by the mid eighties and nineties, many women began distancing themselves from that term. I didn't, in that I felt that that reaction, TOO, went overboard.
It is interesting to me to see how people respond to the word, but also to the treatment of girls and women and the PUBLIC, not just private, expectations placed on them.
Probably today, though, I WOULD have to say that I primarily see myself as a humanist, if I had to choose a lable.
Ecogrrl, I have no idea why you could not just be you. I never did get it. And I cannot imagine how it must have felt to have your mom do such an about face!
Perpetua, I think part of what I wonder is WHY some of my friends and I had such a visceral reaction against conventions that had been in place since before WWII. My sister and most of her friends were fine with the gender rules. But we were not.
What made us switch, so that by the time the Civil Rights movement, Peace Movement and Feminist movement arrived we were ALREADY ripe for them. I read "To Kill a Mockingbird" When it first came out. I believe I was ten or eleven, and I identified with Scout. And I got MAD that it was okay that women weren't on juries and my mom had to tell me about the right to vote--that she had grown up in Scout's time, or just before it.
It would be so easy to say, well. I WAS ADVANCED. A rebel. Nope. I was a little kid who did not fit in, and who eventually got TIRED of not fitting anywhere. Not at home and not at school. A kid who was told to be QUIET and behave over and over.
Even in marriage.
I may have to do PART II, the dating and marriage years. Or not. We'll see.
Wow! That you didn't know your 'role as a girl'! How bizzare for you to be told this! Did we even realize we had roles at that age? All I knew is that I was a kid and wanted to play...I remember in junior high school wanting to take mechanics and woodwork and was told that 'girls were not allowed to participate in these classes'.Man was I fuming!! But there was nothing I could do. Well I suppose I could have fought like the dickens to change that but I wasn't that brave. Now whenever I have car trouble I curse that policy!!! Although I have taught myself to use many power tools and have built a few structures in the garden, built a door for the henhouse and made a gate from scratch, so there!
Compelling storytelling as usual.
p.s...boys were allowed to take the cooking classes though! pee yeww!!
Not being female, I don't have your kinds of experiences. Truth is that I didn't see much of the discrimination you described.
Still, baring girls or women from anything but the men's washom is a lack of humanity. I think anyone should be encouraged in whatever goals he or she sets.
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Play bazaar
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aur bhi bad gai,
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