reclaiming girly

Every once in a while I get pretty bent out of shape over the blatant misogyny, and oppression and repression of women that permeates our culture. Today is one of those days.

Saturday morning children's programming is one of the ways misogyny and repression of women is perpetuated in our culture…I turned on morning TV at breakfast today just in time for a tween/teen show in which one of the (male) characters was so excitedly showing off his first car, only to be taunted by his friend and his father for having a "girly" car. WTF? I remembered why I don't watch as much TV as I used to and started my brain up…

What does "girly" mean anyway? You never hear "girly" used in a way that is empowering or uplifting. And why is "manly" the opposite of "girly"? There is no "boy" equivalent that I can think of (ok, boyish, but that is something else entirely). "Womanly" is used, but so rarely I'm not going to include it here.

"Girly" is defined in the online Miriam-Webster Dictionary as "featuring scantily clothed women" examples are girlie magazines and girlie show"

"Manly" is defined in the same dictionary:

1 : having qualities generally associated with a man : STRONG, VIRILE

2 : appropriate in character to a man

In common culture, I rarely hear "girly" used to talk about scantily clad women. Since "manly" is strong and virile, "girly" must be weak and impotent (lacking in power, strength, or vigor). Girly is a derogatory term, particularly when applied to things that are considered be "male" (e.g., "Girly man" is not a compliment).

So this is all rather academic, I know. I'm working hard here to not use an excessive amount of F-words…I'm over compensating. Today I am angry. I am angry that I've spent the last year and a half trying to forgive myself for self-oppression, for my own misogyny.

I was a confidant, smart, strong girl and then woman until I was 21. Before I was 21, I was an honors student and loved science and wore make up and kissed boys and liked my body and found physics to be beautiful and never thought of myself as either a tomboy or as girly.

Before I was 21, I never personally encountered prejudice because of my gender. And then I became an engineering graduate student, and all that changed. I was sometimes the only woman in the room, sometimes there were 2 or 3 of us…but the rest of the students were men. And the classes usually had 20-30 students. So suddenly, I stuck out. I was struggling academically for the first time in my life…and I started to question why. None of the men in my class seemed to indicate any signs of struggle or weakness...and I started to buy into the shit that is perpetuated in our misogynistic culture. I slowly started eradicating all the things that made me feminine… my clothes got a bit baggier and I entered the "frumpy" phase…the better to hide my breasts and hips. No more earrings or fingernail polish or perfume…"girly" is weakness, right? Shit, I somehow talked myself into believing that I had to blend in and become a boy in order to be taken seriously. Instead of being proud of my accomplishments and successes, I instead saw anything less than perfect as a failure to my gender. So I stopped being a girl, because the disappointment was too great a burden to carry.

Well my days of being a boy ended a year and a half ago when I was meditating in a room that was so red, I was pierced through to my core, and my inner girl was reborn. I still struggle with my self-image…I'm fighting hard to remember what I was like before I was 21…to remember that in my mind girly and womanly were synonymous with "strong". So here's the deal…I'm reclaiming girly just like Eve Ensler has started reclaiming cunt. Girly and womanly are not pejorative terms in my vocabulary anymore.