Changes by Rachel M.

When I was younger, I was a man. Well, not a technically a man, but I definitely looked and dressed like a boy. When people look at pictures of me when I was a little kid, they tell me I looked like a boy. At first I would grimace and respond with, “Shut up!” But now I’ve come to embrace it. It’s interesting to see how I’ve changed over the years, and it’s not like I was the only little girl who refused to wear any form of pink.

At the end of second grade, my insane babysitter told me that she was going to give me a haircut. Being the second grader that I was, I permitted her. My mom came home that night to most of my long hair chopped off and completely uneven. This was the start of my tomboy years.

In third grade, I gave up my liking for dresses and skirts. Whenever I had to go to a fancy event with my family, I refused point blank to put on any skirt or dress my mom gave to me. “It’s too ugly,” “it’s too girly,” “it’s to frilly,” “it’s too pink!” I would complain to my mom. After struggling endlessly to make me wear a dress, my mother finally gave up and allowed me to wear the only thing I would comply to wear: a pair hideous velvet pants and a clashing velvet shirt. All in all, it was not one of my better outfits.

In fourth grade, I gave up wearing my hair down. At first it was too see how long I could go without my hair down; I thought it would be a cool thing to get into the Guinness Book of World Records. This idea didn’t make any sense at all, but to my fourth grade self it did. So, I continued to wear my hair down. After a while though, wearing my hair down became uncomfortable for me. I wasn’t used to my hair hanging down and I thought I looked weird and too girly.

Sixth grade was not my best year, or as I like to say: sixth grade never happened. Now my outfits were comprised of baggy sweatpants, a big sweatshirt down to my knees, and an alternation between a “Camp Playland” t-shirt and a “Camp Emerson” t-shirt. It’s hard to even look back on sixth grade; every time I think about it I want to cringe. It wasn’t just my choice of clothing though. I was awkward and I was weird. Yes, every typical sixth grader is like this, but I was five times weirder and six times more awkward than the typical sixth grader.

In the beginning of seventh grade, I got better. I started to wear long peasant skirts matched with a junk food t-shirt, preferably with a Sesame Street character or some brand of cereal on it. This was still not my finest fashion moment, but it was a step up from before.

At the end of seventh grade, I bought my first bra. This, I think, was the transition where I realized that I was a girl and not a boy. This was where I discovered what the difference, to me, is between a girl and boy. I realized that I could be pretty, I can wear dresses and cute clothes and I could even get my nails done if I wanted. After I came to this realization, I slowly and surely began to change. I started caring more about how I looked and dressed. I cared about how I acted; I became less of a slob. In eighth grade, my clothing style improved. In ninth grade, I got my braces off and I started wearing my hair down. In tenth grade, I began to straighten my hair and wear make-up. I began to transform into who I am today.

This whole experience makes me wonder though. Why have certain mannerisms become a way to landmark what girls are? Yes, I dressed in boy’s clothes and at one point looked like a boy, but what makes this different from “girly”? Why is there one general type of girl? What makes a girl a girl? Most of these questions I cannot answer. Most of the traits of a girl have been created and forced upon girls, myself included, for centuries. But girls don't have to just live and wait for the next womanly aspect of life to appear. They can challenge the gender stereotypes. So what if girls like football? Why is that such a masculine thing? So what if men like fashion? How did these stereotypes form and why did they stick? Just some food for thought.