Respecting Myself So My Son Respects Women

I wasn’t a typical little girl in pigtails and Mary Janes. I was an unapologetic tomboy. I loved all things tough and rough and turned up my nose with disdain at my finger-nail-painting and dress-up-playing contemporaries.

Tagging along behind the boys like Anybodies following the Jets, I was ostracized in much the same way. No matter what sports I excelled at or Mortal Combat nemesis I defeated, I was forever branded by my unsavory gender, to my great chagrin.

It was the eyes of the boys through which I saw myself and my fellow females. Any girl who typified the characteristics of girlishness garnered my condescension, and I strained to avoid displays of emotionality, frivolity, and vulnerability—traits I had come to understand as patently feminine. It wasn’t until much later in my life that I understood this rejection of my own gender as a form of misogyny.

A New Look at Femininity

As the mother of a little boy who is, by all accounts, a “boy’s boy”, I want to be especially careful not to pass on the ghosts of this old attitude. Raising him in mostly gender-conservative Thailand for much of his life so far, he’s already picked up the “girls have long hair and wear dresses, boys have short hair and wear pants” dichotomy. On the bright side, his favorite color is pink; he sports it proudly and most prominently in his bright pink rain boots. So apparently I did something right.

I embrace my femininity as well as my girlishness, which I think of as two separate things that both happen to be natural to my personality. What I don’t embrace is the idea that this makes me any less intelligent, adult, or authentic.

You’ll find me preening in mirror most mornings before work and trading outfits with my best girlfriends who happen to share my size. You’ll also find me lifting 25 lb weights above my head and, once in awhile, playing video games like a boss. So I feel I’ve struck a balance.

Another thing I don’t want to teach my son is that being “equal” to men means that women have to be less feminine if that’s what comes naturally to them, or that they have to abandon the seeming frivolity of getting their nails done or talking about shoes in order to be taken seriously. There can be room for all of this in a healthy view of women, men, and everything in between and outside of those two narrow delineations.

No longer do I shun beautiful things. Instead of stark minimalism, I attempt to embrace vibrancy, color—even prettiness—in my surroundings and in my dress. I enjoy it when my curves show instead of hiding them in baggy boys’ clothes like I did as a teen. I’ve come to value beauty for the sake of beauty, and to understand that beauty itself can be a high ideal.

Freeing Ourselves from the Masculine Trap

I feel for women who deny themselves these experiences, or whatever the equivalent experience would be for them, for the cruel goal of being as good as a man. I spent far too much time doing this to myself. It’s easy to equate being equal with being alike, although the two are certainly not the same.

This kind of equation, which I participated in for much of my youth and still catch myself participating in in subtle ways, is a form of self-negation. It is the ultimate disservice to women, to ourselves, and to our children who are watching the struggle play out and attempting to establish their own sense of self.

I don’t at all believe that being a mother is essential to the experience of womanhood or even femininity. But it has been powerful in reacquainting me with my feminine side. It has helped me discover, after a lot of struggle, that there is an innate nurturer in me.

This nurturing quality does not make me female, yet it is an expression of the feminine in me. My emotional, intuitive way of experiencing the world is not inherently womanly, but by allowing it in myself I allow the full expression of my womanhood.

Other women express their femininity in other ways. That’s the beauty of the creative nature of being human, that it can manifest in an endless number of unexpected possibilities.

Being a feminine woman and a mother is one way I express the unique and joyous experience of the chaotic and boundless creativity of life.

Bio

A millennial mama with an adventurous spirit, Crystal Hoshaw recently returned to the states from another life in Thailand with her little boy. She writes about her trials and triumphs as a single mother and a human attempting to live an authentic life. You can read more about Crystal and her whip-smart Tasmanian devil as they cook, craft, meditate, and laugh their way through life’s ups and downs at LessThanPerfectParenting.com.

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