@Redwing, that is my worry precisely. Personally I think that being female, in this day and age, has many advantages over males compared to the way things were when I was a child and have said as much to my granddaughter. I'm sure that there is a lot of discussion at home about gender (she has 4 older siblings) which is obviously not a bad thing but at 10years old I think that is too young to be making major decisions. I assume there are laws to protect young people from making uninformed choices but peer pressure can be a powerful influence.
Another tomboy here. Hated pink! Drowned my dolls in the farm pond when relatives insisted on giving them to me even though I requested lego!! Was at my happiest wearing wellies and mud with a pen knife to make bows and arrows and camp fires cooking sausages and beans by the stream id just swung over on a rope and tyre. Hate fashion, it's for people that don't have the character to express themselves. Hate beauty treatments etc. I often wonder what aspect of being a woman that confused people identify with.... Is it being under payed? Is it being objectified? Is it being under valued? Is it menopause envy? They are welcome to it!!! Or is it just the wearing of dresses and make up.... in my belief that is not what makes somebody a woman. I respect everybody's right to be themselves however with this concentrated focus I feel that we are creating more classifications/pigeon holes to compartmentalise which is actually causing more division. With our desperation to include the minority we are neglecting the majority. I know my 87 year old mother in law wouldn't like to try on a petticoat in M and S with somebody that identified as a woman but clearly wasn't. It's a tricky balance but I feel "labels" don't really help. CAN'T WE ALL JUST BE PEOPLE?
I'm beginning to feel like I was the only girly girl here!
Your poor dolls @WonkyWomble, I would have loved them. I used to put mine to bed at night and get them up and dress them in the morning - except on Sundays as I said it was my day off. But I was mad about horses, that could involve mud.
Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
You took after your mother @WonkyWomble … I didn’t want dolls either … I was given just one … it was big and could walk and I hated her and cut all her hair off.
I played in the farm workshop with wood and saws and nails, played cowboys and Indians with the boys in the village, had lots of pets, played in ponds and ditches, roamed the woods and fields all day, galloped and whinnied instead of running and skipping and wanted to be a horse when I grew up.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I'm beginning to feel like I was the only girly girl here!
Thing is BL, whilst I was studying maths and physics and then engineering, stubbornly insisting on wearing trousers/jeans and spending almost all of my time with only male company, I was never, not even for a minute, in any doubt that I am female. It never entered my mind to doubt that. Not being a girly girl didn't mean I wasn't a girl. I just didn't want to be boxed in. Not being pretty has a lot to do with it, no doubt. If I was at that age now, in today's internet fed world, would I be as certain? The highly sexualised world of teenagers now is a million miles from my experience.
We have all talked here about the increasing extremism in our politics, where the reinforcement bias of social media algorithms drives the mildly discontented into increasingly extreme protest groups. I feel probably there is a similar process acting in many areas of life, including sexuality and gender attitudes and stereotypes. If you're a girl but not sexually active at some ludicrously young age then you must be a) a religious fanatic b) medically 'wrong' somehow or c) in the wrong body. You can't just be not interested (yet). I'm guessing. My nieces are both now in their twenties and both have their own issues with all this. The girls and boys trying to find their way through puberty must be so much more affected. I do feel sad for them. Innocence is not a valued commodity any more, it seems.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Had to laugh at that, Dove, I used to gallop around, would dearly have loved to grow up to be a horse! Thank goodness there was nothing called species dysmorphia when we were children. I remember insisting on wearing ankle or knee socks for years after my female classmates had moved on to nylons and suspender belts. I didn’t see the big attraction of uncomfortable ‘female’ clothing, and the narrow career choices on offer, basically teaching, nursing or becoming a secretary. Boys certainly seemed to have more freedom and options, especially compared to my fairly strict upbringing. ( when my first ever boyfriend invited me to the cinema - I was aged 15 - my dad asked in all seriousness, which of my brothers I was taking with me!)
... whilst I was studying maths and physics and then engineering, stubbornly insisting on wearing trousers/jeans and spending almost all of my time with only male company, I was never, not even for a minute, in any doubt that I am female. It never entered my mind to doubt that. Not being a girly girl didn't mean I wasn't a girl. I just didn't want to be boxed in. Not being pretty has a lot to do with it, no doubt. If I was at that age now, in today's internet fed world, would I be as certain? The highly sexualised world of teenagers now is a million miles from my experience. ....
Exactly, same here, studied maths and physics with almost all male classmates, no doubt that I was a heterosexual female (hmm, that could be misunderstood couldn't it? ). I just wasn't the "pink and frilly" type, and I never got any maternal instincts. There's more than one way to be a girl (and more than one way to be a boy).
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
Posts
Hate fashion, it's for people that don't have the character to express themselves. Hate beauty treatments etc.
I often wonder what aspect of being a woman that confused people identify with....
Is it being under payed?
Is it being objectified?
Is it being under valued?
Is it menopause envy? They are welcome to it!!!
Or is it just the wearing of dresses and make up.... in my belief that is not what makes somebody a woman.
I respect everybody's right to be themselves however with this concentrated focus I feel that we are creating more classifications/pigeon holes to compartmentalise which is actually causing more division.
With our desperation to include the minority we are neglecting the majority. I know my 87 year old mother in law wouldn't like to try on a petticoat in M and S with somebody that identified as a woman but clearly wasn't.
It's a tricky balance but I feel "labels" don't really help.
CAN'T WE ALL JUST BE PEOPLE?
Your poor dolls @WonkyWomble, I would have loved them. I used to put mine to bed at night and get them up and dress them in the morning - except on Sundays as I said it was my day off. But I was mad about horses, that could involve mud.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
We have all talked here about the increasing extremism in our politics, where the reinforcement bias of social media algorithms drives the mildly discontented into increasingly extreme protest groups. I feel probably there is a similar process acting in many areas of life, including sexuality and gender attitudes and stereotypes. If you're a girl but not sexually active at some ludicrously young age then you must be a) a religious fanatic b) medically 'wrong' somehow or c) in the wrong body. You can't just be not interested (yet). I'm guessing. My nieces are both now in their twenties and both have their own issues with all this. The girls and boys trying to find their way through puberty must be so much more affected. I do feel sad for them. Innocence is not a valued commodity any more, it seems.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
I remember insisting on wearing ankle or knee socks for years after my female classmates had moved on to nylons and suspender belts. I didn’t see the big attraction of uncomfortable ‘female’ clothing, and the narrow career choices on offer, basically teaching, nursing or becoming a secretary.
Boys certainly seemed to have more freedom and options, especially compared to my fairly strict upbringing. ( when my first ever boyfriend invited me to the cinema - I was aged 15 - my dad asked in all seriousness, which of my brothers I was taking with me!)