fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2756 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2756 ⌋

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I've read some stories of parents or teachers telling girls they couldn't wear certain clothes because they were "boy clothes" or shouldn't cut their hair "short like a boy's".
And I'm quite confused because while a man donning a dress would certainly elicit stares and ignorant remarks, it was my impression that girls presenting more "masculine" was pretty acceptable to society.

I think woman have a further line that they can cross than men, but society still values feminine woman more than masculine woman.

But I do think this is a case where it sucks more for men than woman.

This. Girls are allowed to be "tomboys," but they're still supposed to be cute about it.

How long ago were these stories set? And where? Context makes a difference.

I meant stories like someone posted a link to a news article on facebook/tumblr not as in a book or something, sorry for the confusion. So this year in the US to answer your question.

Still too vague to be meaningful, the US is not a monolith. What happens in one place is not indicative of what occurs in all places, and anything posted to Facebook has to be taken with a metric ton of salt.

Anything posted to Facebook? Even articles from reputable news sources?

What the other comment said. Modern day U.S. covers so much territory. What's acceptable social behavior in say, San Francisco, might potentially be waaaaaaaaay different than a small town in the Bible Belt, and that not even taking into account individual reactions. So no, a girl who wore more masculine clothes and hairstyles wouldn't necessarily get a pass everywhere they go and it's altogether plausible they might get some stick for it depending on where they were.

If they are the ones I am thinking of those stories tend to be (although not always) from the American south and are also Christian camps. And even then they are on an extreme end of the spectrum as most people don't seem to think there is anything wrong with what the kids are doing...

Women have much more room to present or engage in masculinity than men have for femininity, because our culture tends to place masculinity and masculine traits as higher and more important than feminine ones.

But ahead of both masculinity and femininity is gender conformity - conforming in presentation and action to your sex.

Growing up, I've generally looked feminine, but I've also generally acted masculine - probably one of my core characteristics as a kid (reading a lot) was fairly gender neutral, and the only feminine thing I cared about was my hair. Otherwise, I judged clothes based on how well I could play or climb a tree in them, which meant a lot of dresses passed muster while a lot of boys' clothes didn't. I also was always a little on the aggressive/assertive side, loud, obnoxious, downright arrogant, bossy...basically, if you described my personality to someone, over nine times out of ten they would assume you were talking about a boy.

I had people who generally didn't care about my gender in relation to my personality. These people rocked, and I am well aware of how lucky I am that both my parents were like this, and were willing to go to bat for me when needed.

I had some people who praised me for pursuing a more masculine personality 'despite' being a girl, and in these cases, it was people who were subliminally projecting that masculinity is better than femininity, so while they probably meant well (I know I usually meant well when I bought into this mentality as a kid), it was still an unhealthy gender perception at work. BUT - at least it wasn't a restrictive one, and accepted difference between sex and gender. This is important, because...

I also had people who would tell me to stop acting like such a boy or to act more lady-like or girly or whatever, and that was an even unhealthier gender perception. This not only takes the unhealthy stance that sex and gender are the same thing or mutually inclusive, but that differentiation between a preset societal expectation of you is unhealthy and bad, which sets the precedent for a lot of other unhealthy attitudes, too.

I think it depends a lot on age. I live near Seattle (in the USA), and my parents were both born in 1955 (I'm 18). When I wanted to cut my hair very short a while ago (tbf, it was a classic "boy's cut"), my mom opposed it because she said I would look like a boy. She let me do it, but since I'm relatively flat-chested, I did get a lot of "oh, what a nice young man!" at my summer job.

That said, what I learned from that was I'm not really as cis as the average bear. So take whatever information you want from that. But around school and people my own age, I never got misgendered - it was always adults, never mind how well I knew the person (or didn't know them). So I think attitudes towards societal gender roles are changing, fwiw.

[ SECRET POST #2756 ]

Boy/girl clothes/hair styles

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