Tomboys Aren't Feminine and Other Stereotypes

[Patryn]

Minor rant here. Sorry.

Since I'm out of high school, I care much less what others think about me, but still...there's a limit. For instance, when I started at my job, which is pretty physical and the majority of the employees are men, there was the ever present "She's a lesbian" rumor floating around. I'm not. So that didn't bother me, but what's it to a guy anyway if a woman is gay? She's obviously not interested in him. Hmmm, maybe that's why they care.

Anyway, I was a tomboy as a kid, and I still am. It's not like I wish I were a man, but with my job and my lifestyle, being "girlie" just doesn't suit me. Ever try to rollerblade in a skirt? Garden in a dress? Type with 8" fingernails? Keep your makeup nice on a fishing boat?

I do not want to spend 2 hours on my hair. I think dresses are uncomfortable and I don't look that great in them anyway. When I dress up, I usually wear a skirt or a pants suit. I don't need a man to open a jar of pickles. I don't need a man to fix a leaky faucet. Being independant, physically fit and comfortable makes me less feminine? Or a lesbian? How?

I don't spit. I don't scratch myself. I have NEVER been in a belching contest. I don't chew tobacco. I don't raise the toilet seat to pee.

So what, exactly, is the deal? Really, I want to be clued in here. Are some guys intimidated by an independant woman? Hell, are some women? Personally, and this is JMO, "prissy", "girlie" women annoy me. Shit, anyone vain and dependant annoys me, not just women.

I'm not just going off here...I want opinions. Why do some (not all by any means) people think that any woman who doesn't wear makeup, have hair down the small of her back, and wears jeans is somehow less of a woman? It's fine if you do that stuff...it's just not for me.

 

[Bliss]

To each, her own!

I'm a pretty down to earth person and I was a beach baby, so I don't much like clothing of any kind but when the occasion arrises, I don't mind primping or dressing up. I do however, HATE pantyhose with a purple passion. They're as irritating and constricting as a bra, and they cover you from waist to toes besides, grrrrrrrr.

I don't care what other people do, but I don't like especially prissy people of either sex, and the ones who bathe themselves in gallons of cheap cologne make me want to buy a pressure washer.

Other than that, live and let die

I sometimes have vain and dependent tendencies but that's just part of my charm of being intelligent, too well read and weird.

As for people labeling you, screw 'em. That's just their small mindedness.

I have entertained thoughts of being bisexual, and I can't usually open a pickle jar on my own, but I do know how to fix bad plumbing, no pun intended. I guess that puts me somewhere left of center.

Why isn't there a damned cents symbol on keyboards?! Just my 2 cents.

Has it occurred to you to let "Sue" find out that you "are" a lesbian? Maybe you'd get to see "Dan" more often. KIDDING!!!!

 

[Nexxus]

Obviously, the problem is with them and not you. If you're happy (and you know it clap your hands!) who gives a fuck what they think.
Men are obsessed with a womans sexual status, I don't know why. Maybe people feel like they know more about you than you are willing to tell when they guess at shit. People lead such boring lives they like to make up stuff about others to spice up the atmosphere and make thenselves appear to know more than they really do. Like the other thread says 'Fuck them!"

Nex

 

[Bonnie Wee Lassie]

One of my first jobs was at a turkey factory. Well all the women had the low paying easy jobs and the men had the high paying hard jobs. Well I wanted more money so I went to where the men worked. Well the rumours went around about me and I was the most hated person in that plant. The woman hated me for making more money and the men for invading there space. I took it all with a grain of salt and the men finally realized that I was there to stay and not gay. In the end I earned there respect but never the women's respect. I figured who gave a shit I was making good money and working hard. I think you should just turn the other cheek they will finally realize that you are a hard worker and will be able to pull your own load.
Man I think I rambled enough!

Bonnie

 

[Patryn]

Hmmm...using lesbianism to gain, now that's a thought.

I suppose the opposite of what I just said hold true as well. Any guy who has "feminine" interests or behaves not "manly" enough is automatically gay, whether he is or not. I'll stop putting "things" in "quotes" now and go answer "another" thread.

And I agree. Fuck 'em. Oh, and Nex, I'm clapping my hands as we speak.

 

[Skitten]

I think that I am somewhere in the middle No I do not need a man to open up a jar , but also not ready to do my own plumbing (wish I could). I think that if you are happy with yourself noting else should matter. Usually people who say that are just insecure individuals who have nothing better to do. Don't worry about them they are not worth you time to even worry about. Do your own thing that makes up the person you are. And if they don't like it screw um they aren't worth it.

 

[Nexxus]

Patryn,
I'd clap, but one hands busy. Hey I think I just answered that age old question, "whats the sound of one hand clapping?"



Nex

 

[Cheyenne]

How about THIS from people I work with: I'm 42 and never married, so I must be gay. Not. My best friend is a married man, so I must be sleeping with him. Not. I have been promoted to sr. mgmt level, and I get along with my male boss, so I must have slept with him to get my job. Not. And even funnier? Sometimes a person believes all three!

Don't worry about what others think or say about you. I never dignify comments along the lines of the above with a response, just put on smile and don't speak. It really throws people if you won't acknowledge what they just said or asked.

By the way, "independent" is my middle name. If you asked people who know me in RL to describe me in one word, "independent" would likely rank first or second in number of responses. It would be a toss up with "stubborn" as to which got the most votes.

 

[Laurel]

I'd clap, but one hands busy. Hey I think I just answered that age old question, "whats the sound of one hand clapping?"

LOL!

Gender stereotypes suck. I think things are changing, though. By the time we're old and grey, I don't think that the distinctions that seem so important to some people will matter at all.

 

[Ezzy]

Gender stereotypes suck. I think things are changing, though. By the time we're old and grey, I don't think that the distinctions that seem so important to some people will matter at all. [/B]

What about ageism stereotypes?
Hideing "just for men" behind my back.

EZ http://smilecwm.tripod.com/cwm2/sleep.gif

 

[KillerMuffin]

Patryn, you took the incensed rage right out of my head and verbalized it perfectly!! THANK YOU.

I worked as a cashier in alaska at a gas station that had a service station whacked onto it. When the pump jocks were sick, I was the one called in to fill in. Because I was smart enough NOT to put brake fluid in the power steering pump (ATF only please) and I could bust tires with the best of them. NOT the other two male cashiers, short little female me. Busting tires, by the way, is when you take the summer tires off the rims and put the winter tires on. Its a long hard back breaking job during the busy season. I am short and too muscular and agressive for the average guy, therefore I'm butch. Not just a lesbian, but butch. The mechanic called me butch to my face.

However, unlike Patryn, I adore dresses, I just don't like the footwear. Heels bite the big one. I wear boots, hiking or boondockers (navy version of combat). It looks ridiculous to my husband person thing, who eventually accepted that I will NEVER wear stilleto heels and a black leather microskirt (I don't care HOW much it sets off my legs and ass).

I'm not a tomboy (I don't have an outtie peepee) and I'm not a lesbian (though if I was, I'd shanghai Jade wow!). I am a woman and I'm quite capable.

Perhaps it makes me unfeminine, but I consider the greatest compliment that my husband has ever given me to be "I'd rather have you watch my back in a fight than anyone" rather than "you're the most gorgeous sexy woman I've ever seen." (He's said both).

 

[Patryn]

Husband person thing? Okay...I'm sorry. I like that one though...if my mental image of you is right, I don't think "hubberdiddles" suits you anyway.

I've heard "butch" on occasion too....mostly from your stereotypical dumb jock, so that went in one ear and out the other.

 

[Bliss]

I think this is in the same vein.

I don't trust anyone with hand model hands, who isn't one. It evidences their prissyness and the fact that they've never done an honest days work in their lives, whether that be blue collar work or just in your own garden, backyard, home or garage. I think it goes along with truly getting in touch with yourself to do something along those lines.

Whether you personally poing affids off of your rosebushes, use a potter's wheel to handmake vases, refinish a staircase, or rebuild a transmission, you are brought back down to Earth and don't have the time or inclination to priss around poking your schnozola into other folks sleeping arrangements.

Hmmmmmmm?

 

[KillerMuffin]

I'm pissed off at him right now. Royally pissed off at him. So pissed off, it's probably a good thing he's two time zones away. It's a minor thing, I'll get over it in a few hours no doubt.

Hubberdiddles and the lot is competely not me. I am the least muffinish person I know. Sort of like calling Kareem Abdul Jabbar Tiny, ya know? Hubberdiddles etc. is also pretty much the exact opposite of him too. He's like a real life, much sexier, version of John Wayne in the Green Berets. He rather reminds me of Captain Reismann in the Dirty Dozen actually... only bigger.

 

[Laurel]

What about ageism stereotypes?
Hideing "just for men" behind my back.

LOL! Oh, they're true, as far as I know...you know, all those cliches about older men being dynamic and imaginative lovers, and older women as unsatiable. Those stereotypes tend to be true, don't you think?

What I'd like to know is this... who'd win at arm wrestling - the lovely KillerMuffin, or the sexy Patryn? I don't know how I'd bet in that one...

 

[*Eve*]

I use to be a tomboy, climbing trees and running with the boys but now, I think I think I'm more of girlie type woman. I have no idea why. If you think out it genger is a more learned than instinctive. A lot of men and women act the way that they do because of the way society tells them to act. I wouldn't give those guys at your job too much though if I were you, they are probably mad because you don't want them.

 

[dancinvixen]

Ok, now I know that what I am about to say, is not something your typically average tomboy would try and do. But I did it anyway. When I was in highschool I tried out for my highschool football team. I trained the summer with them, ran through all their plays, and would have made the team had I had a set of balls swinging between my legs. They replaced me on the team with some guy who couldn't handle tackling another guy bigger than him. He just too afraid of getting hurt. So what happened???? The team lost. It was the year after I left school, that my state decided to allow girls on the football team. But with the inclusion that if they made it, they had to take everything the guys did and would be treated just like the guys. (not that I had a problem but they had to wait until I left highschool.) Needless to say, my old football team was quite upset about this as well. Well most of them anyway, the few narrowminded ones, were still calling me a freak, a butch, a dyke, all kinds of things. Why can't guys just accept that girls can do almost(not all or everything) that a guy can do???? WHy does anyone think that women are an inferior gender just because we are shaped differently and we can carry and deliver babies???? It makes no sense.

 

[Never]

Oh. Oh. Oh.
Can I complain as well?
Here's one you haven't heard before. Everyone thinks I'm straight and it kills me. I've waited for five years for someone to call me a fag so I could reply 'So what if I am?', naturally that never happens. I'm not a Tomboy by any means, physical labor is an anathema to my view of myself but I've started doing the grunt jobs at work just so it might occur to others that I'm, well, butch. I don't have a boyfriend, I never even talk about men. I never wear dresses. I don't know what more I can do. I don't want to walk around my store and neighborhood wagging a lavender flag but this is ridiculous.
It reminds me of my junior year. I decided I'd come out and tell the biggest gossip in the school I'm gay and she never tells a soul. Not one. She just becomes my best friend and finds me a date for the prom.

I don't get it. How do you do it? Am I missing something?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No that I think about it, this is something of a meaningless complaint. Ahhhh.

 

[morgainefairy]

never,

i must admit--that's one i haven't heard before!
maybe you should try the purple flag idea.