It Is About Time You Stop Calling Her A Tomboy
Just let girls be girls — in all their wonderful and varied forms
Recently when congratulating my friend on her wedding anniversary, I was telling her how different she looked in her wedding photos. At the same time, I was also telling her how I have always been a tomboy. And how on my wedding day, so many people were surprised to see me in my wedding attire, just because they were not used to seeing me dressed up.
I then stopped in my tracks.
I had called myself a tomboy when I disliked other people calling me that (at least after my teens) Was it my instinctive bias that made me do so? Probably.
I have been called a tomboy all my life. I hate wearing makeup and feel stuffed and caked when I do so. I hate wearing traditional clothes, which girls usually wear in India, because they don’t have pockets. Why? I have no idea. Do the designers think girls do not have anything to carry?.
I use the men’s wallet just because it is easier to use (see the bias there?). I have also never been a fan of barbie dolls and pink. My whole childhood went by with me playing Beyblades, badminton, and outdoor games. I have always worn black and darker colors. The list goes on.
Does this make me a tomboy? I don’t think so. I have just done what I have felt comfortable doing and worn what I was comfortable in. Again, I want to give a disclaimer that I am not against people wearing makeup or anything. What you wear and what you do is your personal opinion, isn’t it? How does it define my femininity or my masculinity?
Who is a Tomboy?
According to Wikipedia:
A tomboy is a girl who exhibits characteristics or behaviors considered typical of a boy. Common characteristics include wearing masculine clothing and engaging in games and activities that are physical in nature and are considered in many cultures to be unfeminine or the domain of boys.
History of “Tomboy” — origins of the word are problematic
Unusually, the origin of the term was not about girls at all. The term, first emerged in the 1550s in England, for a “rude, boisterous boy”: in other words, for a boy who acted outside the realms of normal politeness. The “tom” in this is the same as “tomfoolery,” and indicates the same kind of masculine behavior. The tomboy of the 1550s would be that annoying kid with no table manners, running around after your chickens, and picking fights in the street.
But then, within thirty years, it evolved, to mean “strumpet, bold or immodest woman”. This wasn’t about wearing trousers instead of skirts; this was severe societal disapproval.
It started to be used only in the 16th century for women but, it denotes the centuries of women policing and keeping them in a box. It refers to all women who spoke up against the patriarchy, did not behave according to the societal norms, or “didn’t know her place”. Basically “acting like a man”, but since she was a girl, it was inappropriate for her to do so.
It was in the 1940s and 1950s, that the word was taken as something odd in the American and English movies. Enid Blyton especially used her tomboy characters as demonstrations of wildness and a weird kind of animal impulsiveness, in stark contrast to refined young ladies.
The word does not necessarily carry negative associations these days, but it does define a boundary of how a normal girl is supposed to look like.
Impact of the stereotype on the younger generation
“The term tomboy is used as a shortcut to describe a girl’s interests and is often even thought of as a compliment of sorts,” says Girl Scouts’ developmental psychologist Dr. Andrea Bastiani Archibald, “but when we label sporty, adventurous girls as boyish, we’re reinforcing the idea that certain behaviors or interests are better suited to boys and men, while the rest are for girls. That’s limiting to children of both genders and not good for anyone.”
It is tempting to celebrate “Tomboyishness”. As a child, I used to feel proud when someone used to call me a tomboy. Judge me all you want, but I used to be proud to be one. For some goddamn reason, I used to consider myself above other girls. “Girlie” was a term that was looked down on, and I used to judge other girls who fit into that box.
Now, when I have grown up and realized my mistake, I see my younger generation doing the same thing. And now more than ever, I am constantly boggled by, “What are we teaching our kids?”. The use of the term “Tomboy” is reducing now, but gender stereotypes still exist in society, and I don’t think anyone can deny it.
Pink is still associated with the girls, and blue is still associated with the boys. Actions and interests are still differentiated. Masculine activities are still given upper priority. Probably it has reduced as compared to before, probably it has become more passive, but it still exists and has a long way to go.
What are we teaching the next generation by imparting these stereotypes to them?
In a 2018 survey conducted in partnership with the BBC, children ages four to eight were asked to identify jobs that could be done by men and jobs that could be done by women.
When it came to be an aerospace engineer, more than half the kids said it was a career man could succeed in, whereas only 15 percent identified it as a field for women. And as for hairdressing? More than 70 percent said it’s a job for a woman, where only 12 percent saw it as a career for men.
Both boys and girls are growing up believing that there are whole fields that aren’t for them.
If a child, by default, thinks some activities are not for them, if they feel limited and keep boundaries for themselves, they would not even try, isn’t it? Somewhere down the line, they would end up carrying the same bias when they would grow up, right? And it would again make them fit into boxes, that a girl or a boy, should do this and cannot do this. It is bad for everybody irrespective of whether you are a boy or a girl.
Simone de Beauvoir wrote, “Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female — whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.”
It is high time we stopped stereotyping roles and activities into masculine and feminine boxes. Let the kids experience everything they want without judgment from society. Let them not think twice about getting fit into the societal norms before doing anything. And last but not the least, let us stop calling girls who do not like pink and play with dolls ‘tomboys’. They are still girls who just do not conform to genders. Just let girls be girls — in all their wonderful and varied forms.
