weird scenes inside the goldmine - "This is just the way I am..."

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21 November 2005 @ 10:17 pm

"This is just the way I am..."

I've come to the conclusion that I'm not really cut out to be a woman.

It's not that I mind being female. Hell, I like it. The clothes are more interesting. I can cover my multiple multifarious blemishes and complexion crimes with goo and end up looking a lot better as a result. I get to have long hair and nobody says a thing, let alone tries to convince me to cut it. I couldn't imagine being anything other than a girl and I'm perfectly adjusted to the fact that I AM a girl. It's just that in a lot of ways I don't really feel like I fit the template.

I've tried, honest to God. I just can't get my head round girls' stuff. I think that in a lot of ways I think male. Every time I test the gender of my mind on those quizzes you can do about it I always get told the same thing: that when it comes to my brain, apparently I'm a bloke who just happened to end up with two X chromosomes.

... Okay, I admit it - I like being a girl but at times I've wished - and wished quite fervently at that - that I was a boy. Never mind that I don't want to be, I'd still like to be. Just for a little while. And simply for the frisson.

Why am I thinking about this? A close encounter with the Harvey Nichols catalog. I've decided I do not like Harvey Nichols. I think Harvey Nichols is a waste of time and I dearly wish it would go away. I was complaining about the fact that it seemed to assume that not only did I have a grand or so lying about I could randomly spend at five seconds' notice, but that I would want to spend said spare grand on a jumper costing £280, a skirt costing £550 and a bangle costing £210. Sorry, but NO article of clothing is worth THAT much money. I don't care what said 280-pound sweater is made of, how prettiful it is or who made it. At the end of the day it's just a goddamned sweater.

Anyway.

I complained about it. Then I realized I was bitching about the price of women's clothing and how stupid people were to pay that much for anything whilst wearing a pair of (oh-so-comfortable) boys' trainers and sitting in a highly undignified sprawl. With my feet on the table. And looking about as ladylike as something which wasn't very feminine at all.

... I sit like a guy.

In fact, I sit like a guy to SUCH an extent that a (gay male) staff nurse on one of my placements asked me if I was into girls.

Huh?

I consider the stereotype. I consider my own nonconformity. I have long hair, an almost pathological inability to go out without make-up on and a fondness for skirts - albeit worn with heavy boots rather than dainty high heels, but skirts nonetheless. I do not exactly look like the cliche butch lesbian. In fact I think I look like pretty much any other average-looking woman out there. With an Eastern European peasant figure, of course (I'd have made a great farmer's wife, I really would have. I've sure got the forearms for it) - but if some guy I work with can ask me that there's obviously something about me which seems masculine. Horribly so. I can't figure it out. Do I move like a guy? Talk like one? There's got to be something, right?

(In related news, my MOTHER used to discreetly hassle me about not defining myself too early. Translation? My mother thinks I'm gay. Hang about... isn't SHE then the one who's trying to define ME?)

And I have no idea how these people can be so sure about something that still baffles several shades of Hell out of me. I mean I'm the one in here, for heaven's sake. I'm not transgender, I know that for a fact. Perfectly well-adjusted to the idea of myself as female. These days, I don't consider myself as having a sexuality - I'll end up with the person I end up with (though I have a feeling said person is more likely to be a woman than not) and I don't see how it matters what they are as long as I like them. I just don't know if I'm really cut out for this 'girl' thing when so much of the girls' stuff out there leaves me cold at best.

Which I guess makes it a good thing that there's no right or wrong way to be female, and I'm perhaps thinking too hard about this, but I've been up since half past five this morning, so indulge me. Please. I've had a long day and I'm not really in the mood to be profound about gender relations and my own relation to them. I'm just in the mood to rant on about it for a little while.

The Moral of the Story: You will never see laila in Harvey Nichols.

Current Mood:

happy

Current Music: you make me want to be a man - hikaru utada

14 comments | Leave a comment

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maxineofarc.livejournal.com on November 22nd, 2005 01:19 am (UTC)

I hear you. I spent some time thinking I might be transgender, but it turns out that my other-than-girly moments are just *really* not girly.

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sevendials.livejournal.com on November 22nd, 2005 01:54 pm (UTC)

My mother used to think I was transgender. I have a very strange relationship with my mother and during my oh-so-vulnerable and weird teens she kept teasing me about wanting to be a man. I didn't want to be a man, I just wasn't totally sure I wanted to be a woman, because so much of the stuff women-capital-W are supposed to like, want, be into and aspire to become just seems almost totally irrelevant to me. I stopped reading women's magazines at age fifteen, for a start, because they said nothing that was even remotely relevant to my life. I'll occasionally read a magazine like that if it's lying round the place now, but would never consider buying one and can't read said free magazine without something in my mind starting to jump up and down and loudly protest the stupidity of so much of what is contained therein.

I think I'm just not particularly feminine, but I have no problems with being female. Just as long, of course, as the rest of the world lets me get on with it in my own way and doesn't keep insisting I'm seriously deviant for failing to be remotely interested in celebrities, babies (one of the nurses on the unit I'm placed at brought her baby in a few days back; I really hope I didn't come across as too essentially uninterested), the Family and the color pink.

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maxineofarc.livejournal.com on November 22nd, 2005 01:57 pm (UTC)

I actively hide if I hear someone bringing their baby into the office. I don't get babies; they make me uneasy, as do most small children. I never know how I'm supposed to talk to them. There are a few that you can converse with like a normal person, but even they make me anxious.

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sevendials.livejournal.com on November 22nd, 2005 02:18 pm (UTC)

Yeah, I would have liked to make my excuses, but I was eating my lunch at the time (I must have been the only woman in that room who didn't want to hold the baby). Even so, there are better places for babies to be than the nurses' break room on an Intensive Care wing. I have problems with babies. And children. I... oh, hell, since it's cards on the table time and I'm weird enough as it is, I don't actually like children. I certainly don't want them myself.

... and god, do I hate being young, female and saying that.

Oh, you'll change your mind when you're older, dear, everyone says, as if the possibility doesn't even EXIST that I won't. You'll meet the right man and settle down... as if it was impossible for me to know my own mind, or actually mean what I say when I say I don't actually like being around children for more than a few minutes at a stretch. Why do people feel so threatened (and even personally affronted) about a young woman saying she doesn't want kids? Nobody bats an eyelid if a young man says HE doesn't want children. Oh, hooray, it's a double standard. How lucky we are.

Look world... first off who says I have to settle down. Second, who says I need to find a MAN to do it? Third, there are more than enough kids out there already. The human race is not going to spontaneously combust if I personally decide to opt out of reproduction. I have nothing against people who want to have kids. If that's what they want to do, fine. I just wish people would stop acting like I personally was seriously deviant for not wanting to do anything of the sort.

/ranting

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goddess-triad.livejournal.com on November 22nd, 2005 01:48 am (UTC)

totally understand, dear. I've never been one of the girly-girls myself - which is why I was turned away by most girls in high school. But then, from the first entry of yours I read -- I also figured you were never the girly-girl type. The way you write says almost everything about you again, if not most of it.

I love being a girl, really. But then again, as I think anyone would agree - it can be the most imprisoning thing to be sometimes. For one thing, girls can be so horrible to other girls that aren't in their said circle. I think you and I and a lot of others are a host of witnesses to that. There are just so many things we think of and worry about that the other sex never have to - at some point (not saying that men have nothing to worry about, that's so not true. But really, it's all so different). There are also a lot of things we CAN'T do. Otherwise we're ''cheap'', we're ''sluts or whores'', we're ''bitches'' or most importantly, we're ''just not the right kind of girl... otherwords, weird.'' and as Anne Sexton says in her poem ''HER KIND'', there's just something about a woman being weird that makes it more taboo than a MAN being weird or different from what society dictates them to be.

It's annoying how everyone should have a norm and definition. But that's how the world is. Everyhing should have these, otherwise it's taboo and should be stayed away from. That's why we're never going to be free to be anything or anyone like we want to be at some point. These labels and hindrances will keep getting in the way. But that's just the way of life.

But at least we can pride ourselves of being the sex most known to continuous stream of consciousness. But... that can be a little unhealthy, too sometimes. That's why we need rant space, dear. So, it's alright. :) Rant away, I love listening.

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sevendials.livejournal.com on November 22nd, 2005 02:08 pm (UTC)

That sounds like my life. I never got on with the girls I was at school with (but this you knew). By the time I was fifteen or so, most of the people I marked time with were male and a couple years younger than me. I think they just kind of accepted I wasn't terribly good at being a girl and most of the time pretended that I wasn't, because it was easier. Thank God for the Internet. It brings people who'd spent most of their lives being considered 'weirdoes' together and reveals that, hey, there are other people like us out there. They're just a bit harder to find.

I can understand my writing giving me away: I don't think I write like a woman would, though I can't place my finger on why. I'm a bit iffier about the way I sit being used to pigeonhole me, though...

Anyways, I agree with you about that thing about girls and people in their circle. It's one of the reasons I never had many female friends and don't feel all that comfortable around women (who knows what they're saying about me when I'm out the room?). And I hate the double standard that attaches itself to women, especially when it comes to sex and sexuality. The papers a few days back printed the results of a survey about attitudes to rape, and people out there seriouslythought women who flirted with men, who dressed in anything more provocative than overalls and had sex with more than one or two guys had only THEMSELVES to blame if they were raped. Am I living in the fucking Stone Age here, or post-millennial Britain? I only ask for information, mind.

I think weird girls are far more interesting than the supposedly normal ones. I can't make friends with girly girls. I can't even really talk to them because there's no common ground at all. Weird girls, though, they're interesting. They're the ones it's worth getting to know. There aren't many of us about, but when you find one it's well worth it.

To hell with the labels. I've got no time for them. I'm me: a marginal societal grouping of one. And perfectly happy with it. If general acceptance only comes on the strength of pretending to be something I'm not, I can live without general acceptance.

All good things in moderation do you good. Continuous stream of consciousness is great, but a little dialogue and action in there is even better still. ^^

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devida.livejournal.com on November 22nd, 2005 06:06 pm (UTC)

*giggle*
welcome to my world hon' on an almost semi-daily basis.
i wish my mom had hassled me when i was growing up.. oh i forgot, she did. not in a nasty way, but if anyone thinks being told to work on cars and run around in the rain playing rugby is any fun then god bless you.
but don't put them on me please.

You're right about there being no right or wrong way to be female. But i think we better tell "THEM" out there cos i don't think "THEY" are aware of this fact.

not Harvey Nichols eh.. How about Laura Ashley?

xx

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sevendials.livejournal.com on November 22nd, 2005 06:28 pm (UTC)

Is it meant to be this confusing here?

I wish my mother had left me the hell alone. Seriously, some of the stuff she said to me when I was an adolescent was actually pretty hurtful. Doesn't help that my brother joined in. Being ganged up on by your own family members over your utter inability to be satisfyingly feminine is really not a pleasant experience. Yeah, it's really funny to tell a sexually confused sixteen year old that you think they want to be a boy when in all honesty they don't know what they want. This kind of crap (and getting hassled aged 13 about being a lesbian) set my sexual development back years.

I don't think that's fun, and if anyone tried to pull it with either of us I would not be a happy bunny and would probably fantasize about feeding them into a wood chipper. Feet first.

THEY need to get their heads out their asses and stop trying to define what is and isn't feminine behavior through Lifetime television and Cosmopolitan. Why is it that people think they can describe an entire GENDER so simply? We're over half the population. We cannot all be summed up as neatly as that, and I would say anyone who craved to be was 1. boring and 2. deserved everything they got. I would like to print out this journal post and send it to the banes of your life at CX. Call it 'a woman writes'. Maybe then they'd get their head round the fact that it ain't that easy to define what makes a woman a woman.

Laura Ashley? Only if my mother drags me in, which she did intermittently all throughout my childhood and adolescence. I seemsd to spend most of my time sitting there and looking bored. I'm not in that financial bracket, and I'd look hideous in dresses patterned like wallpaper.

... Besides, Laura Ashley smells funny.

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http://users.livejournal.com/__generik/ on November 23rd, 2005 06:08 am (UTC)

My mother used to dress me up when I was a child. Everyone used to dress me up when I was a child. After moving away, I stopped dressing up and my mother and father used to harp on me. They wondered (loudly) why I didn't start dressing like a girl. o_o I don't know if they thought it was just a phase but eventually I did start dressing up. Well, like a girl. Though I don't know how a 'girl' dresses. I mean, tshirt and jeans are okay and I was always comfortable in them. I was uncomfortable in skirts and stuff. During that time, I always told my parents that being a boy was easier and how I wished I was a boy.

*shrug* Maybe it is just a phase?

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kay-cricketed.livejournal.com on November 26th, 2005 06:04 am (UTC)

Oh my gosh, I agree completely! There have been so many times when I just wanted to be a boy only to avoid all the... girly things that supposedly go along with being a girl. *sighs*

I suppose I'm a bit different, though. No skirts for me-- sometimes girl-oriented sweaters, but more often than not I dress like a guy. *muses* Besides, they have more comfortable sweaters. I like plain stuff.

I found this post really interesting... I mean, just the idea of it.

I know what you mean about stereotypes. *sympathetically* Ah, and really, lots of lesbians are VERY girly. I mean, to the point where it's startling. I dated a girl once who was a walking future housewife, absolutely perfect for it-- and that's not bad, in fact I thought it was adorable (if not what I usually liked)-- and I thought people should be talking to her if they thought they're girls were lesbians just for doing something like not wearing make-up or whatever. XD

ANYWAY, yes. I'm sorry. Girls clothing IS expensive. Argh.

... being a boy would be neat, too, because I've always wanted to get away with talking like one. XD I mean, not in a rude way, but... oh, I don't know.

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sevendials.livejournal.com on November 26th, 2005 10:50 pm (UTC)

I wanted to be a boy several times during my past; sometimes I still want to do so. Being a girl-capital-G seems very restrictive and worse, a lot of it is forced on you. I never used to wear makeup but I got so sick of the insinuations I got as a result of not wearing it that I caved simply for the sake of a simple life. I actually like doing it now but all the same, I kind of wish it hadn't mattered that I didn't used to like wearing lipstick.

(Small side note: I spent most of my adolescence refusing to go anywhere near makeup. The first time I told my mother I had to go to a public toilet because I had to put make-up on as I felt uncomfortable without it - we'd been out before dawn and I hadn't had the time to do it before I left - she damn near fell over.)

I like boys' stuff; it looks much more comfortable. I spent most of my teens in the most masculine stuff I could find, but somewhere along the line I capitulated to the dressmakers. Not totally, admittedly, but I capitulated all the same.

... I still usually wear pants, though.

And I think I need to meet more women. Most of the lesbians I got to know whilst living in Manchester were stereotypical butch dykes and though one or two of them were kind of attractive, in a weird kind of way, I didn't get the appeal at all. Um, don't women who love women love women, to quote an article I once saw excerpted somewhere, or something like that anyway? Given that this is the case, what's with the whole butch thing? It just doesn't make any sense to me. I have no objection to the more masculine kind of girl, but take it too far and it starts getting creepy.

(Some of them think feminine women can't possibly be into girls, too. I went into a 'women's bar' once and was asked if I knew where I was - which I'd guess was because I was long-haired, wearing makeup and dressed in a skirt. Yes, I know where I am. Thank you. Bye.)

But I have no idea why lesbians so often get tagged with the 'butch man-hater' tag. Women aren't lesbians just because they hate men, world. They're lesbians because they love women. There's a difference. A pretty big difference, too. And there's a hell of a lot more to it than doing it just because you don't want to wear makeup. Plenty of straight women out there don't like wearing makeup. The way you look doesn't count for anything.

... now if only I could tell the rest of the world that?

/minirant

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kay-cricketed.livejournal.com on November 27th, 2005 12:00 am (UTC)

Yeah, I was the same way about make-up. I refused to wear it at all for a long time, and even now I only wear foundation and a bit of mascara. And not always mascara. XD

Dresses are great. Just not on me. XD I'm sure they're lovely on you.

^^;;; Butch lesbians... I'm not entirely sure what's behind that, I never bothered to ask. I like girls 'cause they're pretty, after all. And soft. And... right, moving on. *embarrassed* I figure it's just another preference in sexuality-- people have all sorts of different tastes, even within a different-gender relationship. Hmmm. I dunno.

Hurrah for mini-rants. XD

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sevendials.livejournal.com on November 28th, 2005 12:50 am (UTC)

I wear heavy makeup some days now. But it's because of the whole part-time Goth thing I have going on, which makes dark lipstick a necessity. I'm currently looking out for a dark plum which is so dark it's nearly black, just because I think it would be nice to have one. My current darkest lipstick isn't dark enough for my tastes, damn it (and the black is a pain to wear)!

So yeah. Kind of like it now, actually.

Dresses... well, some of them are okay on me, but I have to be careful which ones I go for. I have quite broad shoulders, and if I wear dresses with thin shoulder straps (or anything with thin shoulder straps, actually) I end up looking like a stag night that's gotten out of hand. Thicker straps are fine, because they detract from the, uh, broadness of my shoulders. Which I am sure is far more than you ever needed to know. Sorry about that... ^^;;

My thoughts exactly on the whole matter. I mean come on. I like long hair on absolutely anybody, if it's in good condition, so I can't see the appeal of the crop-haired trucker thing myself. I mean no kidding, some of them look pretty interesting, but... well, aesthetically one could do a whole lot better. People do have all different tastes but... well, I know it sounds weird but under the circumstances I can't see much difference between dating a girl like that and going with a man. Um, personally.

(That said, though, we had a lecturer in my first year who was butch as sin. And I would not have said no. Definitely not. Eep.)

And yeah, mini-rants are good... ^^

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kay-cricketed.livejournal.com on December 7th, 2005 06:29 pm (UTC)

Dark plum is a pretty color. *approves* I had a lot of friends who enjoyed Gothic style during high school (or in college now, depending on the person), but the farthest I ever got was black jeans and a black t-shirt saying "Sarcasm: Better than Killing People," I think. XD Mostly because I'm too lazy to gather the effort, though...

Ah, I have broad shoulders, too. *sheepishly* Well, broad everything. But also broad shoulders.

Long hair is pretty. ♥

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