Too many times in life we are told “act more like a girl” or to “act more manly”. Even I have fallen victim to gender tropes and people saying that I should dress or act more “girly”. But what does this even really mean? This should not even be a question in this day and age, yet people are still made victims of their gender roles and the importance of acting according to what you were “born to be.”
The more we grow and advance in the world, the more people tend to regress to age old conclusions of what a girl is supposed to be or what a man ought to be because our appendages are different. If a man likes to sew or cook, he gets categorized as being girly, even if that is not what he might identify himself as at all. He may just like fashion or enjoy cooking. If a girl likes to wrestle, wants to be an MMA fighter, or may even work out a lot resulting in a “masculine” figure, she is looked as being too “boyish” because her hobbies may not be applicable to what the “typical girl” does on a daily basis. Don’t people realize that gender conformity is supported by specific gender norms and practices, such as the idea that gender itself is limited to a binary of woman and man, boy and girl? As a girl that plays videogames, wears boys clothes, and even street surfs, I find this to be not only annoying but degrading.
It is disheartening to see that this generation still believes in such ridiculous conventions. Many times I have been told that I do not act like my gender because of this simple justification. The problem is not myself or people that are like me. The problem lies with people that continue to accept these dinosaur misconceptions of what people should be or look like. This is what leads people to accept these falsehoods to be cultural norms. It becomes so mainstream that eventually it becomes believed to many. Just because a man is too slim, has long hair, or wears makeup does not make him any less of a man unless he himself wants to be identified as such. Just because a woman has a short haircut, is a little muscular, or does not adhere to a woman’s traditional style of clothing, does not make her any less of a woman unless she wants to be referred to as such. Even so, it shouldn’t not matter, but continues to matter to some.
Many bands and actors in other countries who tend to have feminine features often get put into this predicament as well because of lack of understanding to other cultural norms. For example, Japanese male rock bands or male Korean pop groups. How does the use of makeup and hair from either one of these transfigure to how much of a man someone is? It shouldn’t. But many still believe that unless you have short hair and a muscular figure that is what constitutes as being a man. Which brings me to this. Why is topical gender so important when it comes to talking to or dealing with people? We all look the same with ten fingers, ten toes, eyes, hair, a mouth and nose. But when someone wants to go outside of what is deemed a cultural norm for a boy or a girl, they are ridiculed and made fun of for just being themselves.
It brings back some pretty painful memories I have of middle school and high school. I was victimized and bullied for dressing like a guy or having non-conventional hobbies of what a girl is supposed to do in her spare time. I enjoyed videogames, I loved football and I liked to skateboard. I liked to read same sex relationship comics or manga mainly because I didn’t see anything wrong with it. To me it was just a good story. I even had gay and lesbian friends. Automatically people started putting these ideas together that I was gay and that I wanted to be a guy. This could not have been farther from the truth. It didn’t matter that I was being called gay, the problem was people assumed I was, and was called hurtful names because of it. What’s more, many didn’t even try to understand me. This lead to more verbal abuse and bullying.
To make a long story short, this continued for a long time and I went into a deep depression. I cried every day I got home. I got tired. I got angry. I wanted this all to stop. I started to change the way I dressed so people would stop bullying me, so I could feel accepted by what I deemed “normal” people. Now I know what you are going to say. “Screw those scumbags, just be who you are.” My answer to that is that it was easier said than done. It didn’t matter that I was not liked by everyone. This was a different problem entirely. What bothered me is that people bullied me for things that didn’t concern them. People made it their business to judge my gender when it was not their place to. Even if I were to vocalize what had happened, would the bullying have stopped? For some this has worked. But from personal experience, no matter how many teachers I told nothing was really done. They were given a slap on the wrist and the bullying continued.
I changed my appearance and avoided talking about my hobbies so that the bullying would stop. I don’t know what others would have thought in my situation, but no one should have to go through what I did or even have had to change because people took pleasure in hurting others just to feel superior in American social hierarchy. Despite what I did to temporarily fix the problem, I felt the change was what hurt me more than anything else. I hated not being able to be myself around others. Eventually I had to make a decision. To be myself and deal with the repercussions of that choice, or to hate myself for not being true to myself.
To this day I look back on all of this and I can’t even remember how I even got through it all if it had not been for my family. But the point remains this. Sometime after going to college it occurred to me, why was I caring so much about what people thought? They didn’t put money in my pocket and at the end of the day I didn’t come home to them. So why did it matter what they thought. Sometimes we get lost along the way and take superficiality over what really matters most. The content and character of who you are as a person.
Eventually I grew tired of trying to play the part that others wanted me to be. I went back to dressing the way I wanted to dress and not hiding my hobbies anymore. It didn’t matter what people thought of me or what people said. As long as I was happy with myself, it didn’t matter what others thought. I still was a girl, I didn’t need to prove that to anyone. I went back to enjoying the hobbies I loved most in public. Today I nerd out about videogames, anime, and horror movies. I still continue to street surf, and yes, I still shop in the boys department for casual clothes and sneakers a lot of the time. Does this change who I am? Not in the slightest. Since those years have gone by I have found people in my life that truly except me for who I am. My family continues to be my rock and keeps me grounded. If it truly was not for them I don’t know where I would have ended up. All I know is that right now, I feel great, and I am in a good place because of them.
What people need to realize is this. Gender may be real in terms of what we are born with, but it does not dictate who we are as people or what we want to be identified as to the public. People should be judged by the kind of person they are, not who we are or what we enjoy or like because of what we are. Love yourself. Because if you don’t, how can you expect anyone else to?
