When my parents found out they were having a girl, one of the first people they called was my grandmother. She was so excited that she did a dance while singing, “It’s a girl! It’s a girl!”
This story always makes me smile as I picture my curly-haired grandmother dancing in her living room. However, there were many times that being a girl did not make me want to dance in the slightest.
As a child, I loved dresses. Sundresses were my favorite, but aside from them, I almost exclusively refused to wear a dress of any sort. I did something similar with the color pink; even though I had no issue with the color, I still told everyone who asked that I hated it.
For some, this may seem odd. However, as I grew up, I frequently saw two alternatives in the media I consumed. If there was a female character, she would either be a “tomboy” or a “girly-girl” (as I called them then).
Children’s movies are filled with the dueling portrayals of the tomboyish girl who isn’t afraid to get dirty and the typically girlish character who is proper and feminine. The tomboy is strong, independent and likable. The girlish female is limited and limiting, with a few redeeming instances just prominent enough to make her sympathetic.
I didn’t want others to know I liked dresses or the color pink because I saw both equated with this type of character who I definitely did not want to be. I perceived being “girly” as bad, and ran from it.
I faced a different reality in middle school. Puberty came and with it a body that was forming in obvious ways. Apparently, this was seen as an invitation for boys to stare and comment about every part of me they decided looked sexually appealing (mostly my breasts).
During class, boys would tell me what they would like to do to me—never with me, always to me, as if I was their personal sex toy instead of a human being. I didn’t feel like a real person in front of them, just a collection of parts they wanted to look at or touch. It was like being naked all the time and no one had the character to tell me that I had dignity or that they saw that dignity. They just wanted to undress me further.
Guys went from being some of my best friends to being my antagonists. I was sexually harassed for two years and each time it communicated to me that I was not interesting, beautiful, or worth knowing, but I was a nice collection of fat stored in the right places.
I perceived that femininity was not only bad, but it was weakness. It came with the response of abuse and objectification. An X and a Y chromosome, however—that was a position of power, strength, invulnerability.
I wore men’s shirts. I wished for smaller breasts. I wore chains, not only because I liked the look, but because they made me look tough and masculine. At one point, I cut my hair. I liked the new length because it was easier to maintain, but also because it made me feel more boyish. I thought looking more like a man would make me seem stronger and more intimidating. I thought it would end the comments. After all, if someone can’t see something, how can they comment on it?
Kids still made fun of me, now for looking like a boy. Even in my attempts to look masculine, I didn’t like those comments. I was and am a girl. I wanted to be seen as a girl, but without the cruelty and objectification that came with my gender.
When I came to believe in Christ, I found a lot of healing because I met a God Who values me as a person, made me female, declares that femininity is good and values human dignity. I love being a woman. I love the unique attributes and roles of womanhood. I love the ways I can talk and be known with other women.
I do still struggle and often catch myself trying to prove my strength in front of men. I struggle with not hating them in a world so filled with abuse and objectification toward women, when many men deny that abuse exists and refuse to listen to the women who tell them otherwise.
I struggle, but I'm healing.
I'm not the only one who needs that healing, and neither are the women who have experienced what I have, or worse.
Our entire culture needs healing. Our men need healing. Our society breeds an environment where these kinds of stories are common, but fall on deaf or twisted ears. We live in a country that tells its little girls that our idea of masculinity is better than their femininity. We live in a place where it is seen as normal for someone to be scared of dogs following a dog attack, but not of men after a woman experiences a rape perpetrated by a man.
We live in a society that needs healing, and to be healed it must listen to our stories.
