Day Twenty: Girly Girl

I am girly when I want to be.

Once again, this is a kind of strange thing to be proud of and also once again something I have only recently accepted about myself. Remember how I said that I never wore dresses as a child? Well that was pretty much true about anything that might be marketed as “girly.” No Barbies, no dresses, no makeup sets, none of those things that most girls grew up with. I wasn’t interested in princesses or parties involving princesses. I also hated the color pink.

I’ll explain tomorrow why my life had a pretty distinct lack of feminine quality. I was raised primarily by my father who taught me how to fix a car before I learned how to braid my hair. But the tragic/hilarious tomboy lifestyle that was my upbringing is a story for another day.  All you need to know is that being raised by boys teaches you to suppress those parts of yourself that boys don’t embrace; ie. the girly aspects.

I didn’t wear makeup until after high school. This isn’t because my parents are weirdly Amish or I’m naturally beautiful. This is because my mother never wore makeup. It was just a non-factor in my life, never in the house. Think of it this way: if your parents never ate potato chips and just never had them around, you probably wouldn’t eat them that often either.  The summer before college I got a job at a clothing store that shall not be named (it starts with F and ends with orever 21.) Working there I pretty much had to wear makeup. I’m not going to say they forced me, but it was expected.

I didn’t really wear that much makeup in college and I don’t wear it every day even still. But there was a time when putting on makeup made me feel like I was betraying some part of myself. I felt ashamed to wear it. I felt stupid painting my nails. My boyfriend told me I looked better without it, so I wouldn’t wear it around him.

But then I realized that I didn’t have to wear makeup for anyone other than myself. It is true that I wear it at my jobs a lot, especially when I teach, because it is expected of me. It looks professional. The fact that I have to wear makeup while my male coworkers do not is a double standard in society that I’m not going to even touch on. But I’ve come to understand that I don’t have to feel bad when I wear/buy/look at makeup. Even frivolous makeup like eye shadow and lip color.

I’m not going to lie, major props for my acceptance of makeup and my acceptance of self come from my best friend, Madison.

I spent a lot of time when I was younger (high school) denying myself things that I liked because I perceived them as girly. I was so focused on breaking a gender stereotype that I was categorizing things aimlessly.  Today I like to wear makeup, I like to get all dolled up to go out. I loved shopping and chick-flicks and girls’ nights and flirting and skirts and dresses. I don’t like these things specifically because they’re girly, I like them because they’re fun. I like them because I like them.

And that’s all that really matters.

Challenge to my Readers:

Embrace your gender, regardless of whether it’s the one you were born with or the one you identify with. Embrace the opposite gender, or a nongender. Penis or vagina, we all deserve to be happy.