Femininity

It's some club I was never invited to join. The land of bows, barrettes and make-up; flaunting of pretty legs and fingernails, tight shirts beneath loose cardigans. Batting eyelashes and waxing eyebrows, leaving behind the little girl, unaware that she's supposed to be pretty.

It's occurred to me many times throughout my college years, that I need to explore how I became this person I am; how I cultivated my definition of femininity. I skirted the topic for a long time, half-afraid of it, half unsure I understood it. Afraid to understand it? Maybe. I knew it was convoluted, I knew there was no reason to think I had to be the rough one, the unkempt, au-naturale weird girl. But that's what I've always felt like.

Stuck somewhere between self-aware and fully-bloomed, I grew to distrust the members of the club. They were sinister with their stuffed bras and painted faces, and the rest of their God-given beauty. I was shaped wrong. I hadn't been given the gift so important to girls of my age--I had a lumpy stomach, a chubby face, skinny legs and flat, brown hair. I also had a premature swearing problem by age 8 (thanks, Dad).

I surrounded myself with the other awkward girls--three misfits who all had strange tastes and weird quirks. Casey, our commander, had a loud, bellowy voice and a boxy frame, and loved to ride horses. Dana was tiny, she had hair flatter and browner than mine and did nothing but practice ballet and read Little House on the Prairie books. Ashley was freckly with a major learning disability--she was put on every ADD drug ever made. She hated it, cried every night. She suffered from flat feet. I let her cheat off my tests because I couldn't bear leaving her behind a grade if she failed. She was the first person who ever told me I was smart.

We were all fucked up. Our families were poor, we lived in Baker and we couldn't afford to look cool like the rest of those cunts. My family regularly received the church food donations, and I was only enrolled in the Catholic school because my mother worked for the church and got a waiver. Ashley's parents fought all the time. And those cunts would trip us in the lunch line, and other cunty things like that. For a long time, I just thought it was supposed to be like that.

But as much as we hated them and all their accessories, we all wanted desperately to be women, and recognized as such.

One day in fourth grade, I stole some lipstick from my mom--it was this awful shade of tan/brown--and at recess, I went to the bathroom to put it on, making sure no one was in the stalls before I pulled it out. I was so afraid--not of what it would look like, but that they might think I was trying to be like them.

And of course, Kayla Berthelot walks in. Cheerleader, tall with perfect hair and clothes tailored specifically to her. The girl I imagined went home to a secret, decadent lair, to conspire with her evil mother on ever-endless ways to be more cunty.

"Hey Christie, tryin' to be pretty?"

I stopped, mid-"O", looked at her grinning in the mirror behind me, and dropped the lipstick down the drain.

"Just, ah, putting on my lipstick," I blurted out, a little too loudly.
"You don't wear lipstick," she said. The grin slid off her face like my grandma's eyeshadow slid off hers, into this stone-face fueled with disdain.
I said nothing as she floated out of the bathroom.

What could I have said? "Yes, I do?" No, because I didn't wear lipstick. She already knew that. Girls like me don't wear lipstick.

And that stuck with me for a very, very long time.