Boy or Girl?
I was recently unnerved after reading an article featured in the NY Times about how some young girls in Afghanistan are being dressed up and passed off as boys. (The link is at the bottom.) Initially I cried, largely because I think every woman has felt that way, and envisioned how much easier her life would've been if she had in fact been born as a boy. Than I started to think about it, more in terms of these young girls who are being passed off at boys they seem to end up having careers and becoming the changing force in that country, even though its incredibly painful and degrading for them once they return to life as a female.
It made me think a lot about my own childhood. I was the youngest of an older brother, and an older sister. Ironically, my mom dressed me in both of their leftover clothes, so in half of my baby pictures I'm wearing blue, brown, green and other "boy" colors, not to mention that I had a naturally occurring mohawk, which I not only rocked for much of my early hair life, but my mom seemed to do nothing to persuade this. As much as my mom tells me that everyone knew I was a girl, judging from my wardrobe and hairstyle I find it hard to believe that most people didn't comment on "what a cute little boy I was."
This was than leveraged by me only having boy friends up until kindergarten, everyone in my playgroup was a boy, according to my mom it was just that it happened to work out that way. I learned very early on that when dealing with boys, especially since none of them treated me like a girl, that if they did something that caused you pain; physical or emotional, and you cried they would laugh at you, but if they did something that hurt you and you just hit them, they would stop and most likely never do it again. Needless to say I got very good at beating up guys.
My older sister in similar fashion had also figured this out on her own a few years early. She found that if she bit people, specifically the boys in her playgroup, they would be scared of her and than she could be in charge. For some reason, none of the other parents seemed to think this was a problem, but as my sister proudly exclaims she continued doing this until my mom threatened to take her to the dentist and have all her teeth removed. A threat, I was ok with seeing that my sister had also bitten me and my brother, which she really didn't need to do given that she was already in charge of us, but I guess it was just in case as a back-up. The threat probably wouldn't have worked, if at the time my sister had more information, given that all of her baby teeth were going to fall out anyways, plus I don't think any dentist would actually perform that procedure, and my parents definitely would've been to cheap to pay for it. However, without that information it was a legitimate threat, and my sister did stop.
In a lot of way though, I feel as though I very much had a gender neutral childhood. My brother was my hero, and I was determined to be exactly like him, even if that meant playing in the mud despite wearing a really pretty dress. Its not to say that I didn't notice gender, nor to say that the activities boys got to do always seemed a lot more appealing to me than those of playing house. Everything from karate, to being outside, all the adventurous type actives. I did this although, I was consciously aware that I was a girl, and that people either thought it was inappropriate or that I wouldn't be very good at it. When they didn't feel that way, like at the karate studio, it was painfully clear I was out of my league, given that there was only one other girl in the facility.
Than there were the times that my mom sent me to basketball camp during the summer. There was me, and five other girls, and what seemed like at least one hundred boys. The camp decided to let us all play together, and so I was on a team with all boys. Even though I was used to playing with guys, and I guess I had proven myself to the boys I usually played with, these guys refused to pass me the ball or even let me have a chance. I responded be being hurt, and than being overly aggressive, pretty much trying to fight them. After the first few days of camp I had no desire to ever go back, my mom made me go anyways. The only good news is the next basketball camp that I went to which was with a different group, had a plethora of girls.
Despite all of this, I've still always had a lot of guy friends, and the only few people who I've ever gotten close to fighting with in my adult life have been males, and alpha males at that, that I completely clash with. I think the most frustrating part is that I feel as though I've spent most of my life having to prove time and time again to the boys that I'm tough enough to hang with them so to speak. I wish I could walk in a business meeting as a woman, and feel as though I'm respected because I'm a woman, not that I have to completely turn into a boy to have respect or value. Something that I've thought up until recently was the only way I would gain any stride in the extremely male dominated industry I've chosen to pursue a career in. With that being said, I can, although sadly, completely relate to these little girls in Afghanistan who's only real opportunity at this moment to have respect and value, is by cutting their hair and changing their gender. I just wish that men hadn't made this world so painful for us.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/world/asia/21gender.html?_r=1
