Boys, girls or what?

[datahawk]

I’m thinking over a conversation a friend and I are having in Twitter about underwear, panties specifically. The comment was made to me that at least I’m the ‘correct’ gender for my obsessive collection of panties. I realized I don’t subscribe to that notion. Girls can wear boys clothes with little question made of them, however a boy wears girls clothes of any fashion and it’s ‘weird’ or different. I have so many friends who are gender correcting or gender fluid that I have a hard time considering there being a correct gender for panties.
Then it got me thinking of kids and specifically tomboys. I am a tomboy. I never ‘grew out of it’ like so many girls are expected to. So, do tomboys grow out of it because they want to or because society, and possibly their parents, are forcing them to. My personal opinion? I think it’s the expected gender roles defined by our society that expect girls to grow out of being tomboys, that call non masculine boys sissies and adults fags and dykes for not dressing, or acting, how we are expected to.
I am a girl. It is something I have never questioned. I am a girl who society thinks dresses like a boy, because I wear comfortable jeans and casual t-shirts and I’m more likely to be in my Vibrams or Converse than heels. I am also a tomboy who wears frilly panties and lacy bras. So, then what do you call me? I call me, me.

Comments

[lisagems.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, your experience with wearing more masculine clothes is not everyones. I got tons of crap for wearing jeans and flannel shirts through Jr. High and my freshman year. I still see articles about school discriminating against girls who prefer to wear "boys' clothes", down to refusing to add a picture of a girl wearing a tux, instead of a dress, in the yearbook or refusing to let girls wear tuxedos to prom. To this day, while I have plenty of dressy dress things, I'm still more comfortable in masculine clothes. I'm still more tomboy than girly girl and I still hear about it from various people. I just don't much care.

I do, however, care when it comes to younger women, or girls, who may very well be trying to learn about their real gender identity. Society definitely pushes girls to wear 'girls' clothes' and eschew things for boys. Just look at the most recent epbot blog. Little girl all excited about getting to be her favorite character from start trek for halloween, Spock. Not only is she harrased by her peers for chosing to dress as a boy for halloween, even one of the *teachers* said she looked "weird" in the costume. It's freakin' halloween you a$$hat$! Would you say she looked weird if she dressed as a frog, or a zombie, or a pumpkin? No. But she looks weird because the character she dressed as was male.

(pant pant pant, whups, got a little ranty)

[stormdog.livejournal.com]

You make a very good point there about discouragement of "male" wear for girls. I guess I was thinking in the much more limited scope of workplace attire.

[stormdog.livejournal.com]

And I'm showing a bias there again. Specifically, I mean in professional, white collar workplace attire. ('Cause that's the only place where real work gets done, right? *I can't even type that with a straight face.*)