Label Whores No Mores

I climbed trees, played sports, made mud pies and rode my bike with fervor. With as much joy, I donned a fancy frock, painted my nails, experimented with make-up and baked cookies. I liked dinosaurs and video games and matchbox cars, I chased boys down and kissed them. In my mind I brought to life countless scenarios in which I was the daring savior, the heroine, the boss. The rebel, the damsel, the leader. And they all fit like a glove. And still do.

I had two brothers closest to me in age, so "boy stuff" was available, but I didn't think of it that way. It was just stuff to explore. I never stopped to wonder what ramifications there would be if I didn't do one or the other set of activities, I just went for it. I employ the same gender-blindness with my own three daughters, they are as grubby and rough housing as they are emotional and delicate at any given moment. I want for their world to be as boundless and wide open as possible, so when I see people trying to place them in a gender place of stereotypes (and it happens often), it gets me formulating theories about how to lessen the importance of proving things, and how to focus more on being at ease with who they are and what they want.

Terminology gets in the way, most often. We are a society of classifiers, and that is backed up by the way we think and how we pre-determine things just at face value. Inside the box, I've noticed. As progressive as we are in this the year of the future, we are still quibbling. It has to be embraced from the get-go, that we are all a jumble of both genders and how cool that we are who we are, irregardless. Our unique perspective is where we really are.

As I got older, around my early twenties, I started classifying myself as a tomboy, as a shorthand way of saying I do things I like doing, and steer my own ship, no matter the gender normative. If I didn't define myself as such, people had a harder time understanding motivations I had to be independent or sans a steady boyfriend. Like, so much so that I deferred to a term to define myself, rather than just rolling with it despite what they had to say, turning a deaf ear to their pity or confusion. I was told it's rude to be rude, or something like that. It was oppressive at times but I didn't buckle, I just ignored it as much as I could, we're all equal in my eyes ultimately. A little packaging won't change that. Beyond gender or race or color or religion, we are people.

The ironic converse of the tomboy thing that I have encountered in my career as grown up tomboy, would be the feminist scene. It's a hot button issue now a days, which is weird, since it's been an ongoing struggle for a long time, home girl Gloria will tell you. Lately it seems like you have to shove in every one's face how proud you are being a girl/woman, else they take you for a pushover. Which usually means you are likened to a man, with all your damning of convention and your sharp tongue and demanding of things. Eff you men and your sexist malarkey! We are going to get ours because we are just as good as you, but you aren't that good! Kind of thing. I've never met someone that considers them self a Manist, though, for obvious reasons. So jokes on us.   

I'm not opposed to solidarity and feel it with a select group of strong women I've known, but many times the same that use power statements with the term "vagina" in them (for the last time we have VULVAS not just the vagina, or one part that facilitates sex and baby making, which are the sole functions we are trying to disassociate from in the first place, to level the playing field right?) and refuse chivalry of any kind and rail against wage gaps are the same doing the biggest injustice to any slighted group. And they tend toward using the term rather than living it.

In doing those things, one is still needing the all evil male gender to validate and bounce off of  for their argument to mean anything. And that puts the wall up between the two sides of a very human coin, pointing right back to the whole he/she situation that doesn't fix anything, just emphasizes it. And we are still needing a man to validate. As the galvanizing leaders who spoke for equality of all kinds, positive replacing the negative is so much closer to victory. 

Yes, there are invisible ceilings and horrendous sexist mentalities, and definitely injustice in ways of monetary appropriation, but if that's all we focus on, then that's all we'll ever be. No matter what is implemented outwardly, the change has to come from within for it to stick. No one can insult you unless you feel truth to their insults. That I do know. So if we carry on building armor around us, we close off to all that might help change that nastiness, for good. Our nurturing natures, serve us better than we ever thought.   

By this time some might be incensed and wanting to leave an embittered word or two in the ol' comment box. How dare I, not want to join something that is finally gaining the momentum it deserves, being a woman and mother and professional in my own right? How can I not use a term to define myself, if it's powerful and enlisting myself with the masses of independent people that I am a part of? I feel you, skeptical people. I realize if the revolutionary scores before me had a similar mentality, the civil/gay/gender equality movements would have looked very different throughout history. 

The beating of a drum only creates more attention to the drum being beaten, not the tireless persistence to be heard though. It's the structure we live in, but that's what I'm talking about. In every instance, the breakthroughs came when it wasn't a fight anymore, but a persistent truth with calm clarity behind it.

Be the change you want to see, evolve past all of it and create your own world of equality. Invite others into that place, with your kindness and example and attention to that which works. Then those around you know who you are through your actions, no word needed. Step into your strong shoes and be the best you possible. Leaving all the real malarkey out of it.

There will be monsters and ridicule and barriers, yeah. You have to tune that out and stick to it. Pay dues, plant seeds, keep at it. As a person with goals or dreams or ideas. Ignore the clamor of insecurity, inside and out, or you will always be paying attention to it, and it will always contort into something else out of whack.

I watch my own little ladies get after the world with ease and flair and gusto, and I know that they have this idea at hand already, gratefully. They already know that us chicks are a dynamic bunch of beings, but not just because we're women. Because we're diverse and miraculous and powerful and deserve all we want, however we want it. And we shall attain it. If we'd just realize that and stop letting others tell us anything different.

Cheers, ladies. We got this.