My Girly-ness. By Jennifer

My Girly-ness. By Jennifer

Four things a woman should know: How to look like a girl,
How to act like a lady, How to think like a man, And how to work like a dog.

In class we’ve been talking about transgenders and transsexuals and about why they would change their sex. We see men dressed up as women either with dresses, makeup, cosmetic surgery, and everything else in between.

I can see why they might want to be a girl. It’s actually fun. Personally, I wouldn’t change my gender. I like being a girl. It’s what I do and it’s what I do best. What I mean by that is that, I like being the stereotypical girly girl. No, I’m not as fragile as the typical girly girl and no, I don’t put a ton of makeup on every day. Yes, monthly surprises are a pain in the butt for four to five days. I like to wear heels and putting on makeup every morning, even though I honestly don’t need it. I love to go shopping. Although, my taste in music has changed from Britney Spears and N*Sync to Kelly Clarkson and OneRepublic, it still has a girly girl influence, just a more mature one.

My sophomore year, I lived in the dorms with a girl who had a ton of makeup and who put a lot on. She didn’t need it either. One day I asked her, “Why do you spend so much time putting on makeup when you actually don’t need it?” She replied, “Because it makes me feel safe and comfortable.” And now when I stand in front of my mirror throwing clothes everywhere and putting on finishing touches on my mascara, I can understand why I care so much. Being a girly girl makes me feel safe and comfortable because I know who I am and I don’t want to change it.

In class, we drew a timeline of the average girl life and one the timeline was the “tomboy” phase. I stared hard at the words “tomboy” and tried to remember a time where I actually went through that phase. The problem is is that I never went through one and I’m glad I didn’t. Two of my cousins went through a serious tomboy phase and in my family, being a tomboy wasn’t okay. It wasn’t “right” for a girl to dress and act that way. When I was younger my mother would always put me in dresses and would tie my hair up into a small pony tail with cute butterfly clips. Now that my hair has grown out more out of the innocent fine straight hair characteristics it used to have, the butterfly clips had to change into headbands or bobby pins. When I reached high school, I never realized that girly girls were able to be girly girls while being great athletes. My mother never put me through sports.

But now when I walk around the streets, I never see a “tomboy”. You see girls with too short skirts or girls in high heels. Where did the tomboys go to? New University writes an article about how young girls are growing up too soon in an article called, “Girly Girl Dominance: Death of the Tomboy.” The problem is that, in this article, girly-ness might be changing into slutty-ness and I can definitely tell you that I am far from slutty. Just because you want to wear a skirt shorter than your knees or you like to wear heels, doesn’t make you slutty necessarily. It’s just how you present yourself and in the way you act.

Being a girly girl comes so naturally to me that I don’t understand why there’s a Wikipedia article on “How to Be a Girly Girl”. I guess there would be downsides of being a girly girl. Guys think you’re too fragile to joke around. Your parents won’t let you sleep over at your friends’ house. People don’t really take you seriously which might make getting into the business industry hard. To me, there’s so much more to being a girly girl than liking the color pink. The color pink is something that I can rely on whenever I’m picking out anything whether it be a shirt or a slice of cake. So being indecisive as I am, this comes in handy. Shopping is so much easier for me because I know that I can always stick to ruffles or florals. If you were to ask me to describe myself, girly-girl would definitely be said and I’m sure darn proud of it.