I spent the first few years of my life having six older boy cousins as role models. I was the girl who ran around the yard with a toy gun shooting six other boys and preferred Power Rangers panties instead of Hello Kitty ones. I imitated the way my cousins would rub their mouth with their sleeves, avoided saying “Aww” to cute things, and tried my best not to shed a single tear when I scraped my knee. Needless to say, I was the tomboy in the family.
However, being the only girl actually also had helped me explore my feminine side. For instance, I eventually was always drawn to the girl character in any games because nobody else, for example, would want to be the pink Power Ranger. But I knew that I wanted to be the pink Power Ranger. I liked being a girl and the feeling of being protected. I enjoyed getting the privileges such as getting to go first when we had to share a Nintendo game with only two controllers, and being able to win the game although everyone knew someone must’ve let me won.
It wasn’t until my little sister was born that I began to thoroughly explore the girly side of me. I started to spend less time singing along to “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” with my cousins and more time playing Cabbage Patch dolls with my sister. In middle school I moved to a different school and almost never hung out with my cousins anymore. People say middle school is the time when you find your own identity, and that was when I stopped following my cousins and became more feminine. I started owning skirts and heels and actually enjoyed strutting in them. I would let myself cry during a sad movie. I even painted my room pink.
Looking back, I realized that my gender identity is greatly influenced by the situation and people around me. I wouldn’t trade my experiences of both being a tomboy and a feminine for anything, because it had let me view the world from different angles.
I totally agree with "middle school" being the time when people usually find their identity. For me, it was more late middle school, early high school. But it's all about the same, around the same time.
ReplyDeleteI was also the tomboy one, playing with the guys and "guy things" while all the girls would play something else. But like you, that changed. It's good to have the experience, I guess you would say, of interacting with both sides and being open to new ideas, even if we didn't know what was really going on when we were little :)
Socialization seems to have played a large role in Beverly's life. Her actions and mentality adapted to the characters of the people surrounding her. Gender stereotypes were constantly present. "Everyone knew someone must’ve let [Beverly] win," yet winning is a gender neutral activity. Because society has created an association between video games and boys, if a girl wins a video game, many people will automatically think that it couldn't have been by her own ability. When she was with the boys, Beverly never played with Cabbage Patch dolls. Though no one exposed her to anticipatory socialization, it is likely that her male cousins were subjected to it. Boys are "supposed" to play with "boy toys," like video games and Power Rangers and are never supposed to show pain. It is likely that observers of Beverly's cousins were exposed to gender attribution with all of the gun shooting and "manly" games they played. As Beverly grew up with the boys, it is interesting that she did not form a self-fulfilling prophecy and define herself as permanently a tomboy. Because she is currently more feminine than "tomboyish," Beverly's gender bio really demonstrates how heavily group associations define our gendered actions.
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