Multitudes of Pink

I think there’s an unusually high percentage of young girls who denounce femininity in the only ways they can understand it; picking green instead of pink, thrashing when a dress is pulled over her head, refusing to play with the dolls when her friends ask. 

It’s a weird concept to grow up a girl and hate everything about it. Thinking back on it, I don’t even really know why I hated being a girl, just that none of the things I was supposed to like were likable. I did exactly what some of the other anti-girls were doing; playing with the dinosaurs and dragon toys instead. Refusing to wear dresses, demonizing the colour pink. Sometimes I even refused to play with other girlsㅡ hoping the boys would include me in their sports and games of manhunt. I was desperate, now that I look back on it. Desperate to be seen as someone tough, capable, fast, strong. 

Which somehow, I knew, wasn’t going to happen if I spent my time wearing pink and playing with dolls in cutesy little dresses. 

***

Now that I’m older I know that the things I wouldn’t be seen doing as a kid were nothing but stereotypes, I know that I can be tough, capable, fast and strong with or without them. But I still find myself thinking about the women around me differently than I probably should. Instead of learning my lesson and growing up, I’m still stuck in that childlike mindset, except in a more typically ‘masculine’ way; I might be able to spend time and befriend other women, but I still view much of our relationship as a competition. Instead of lifting the women in my life up, I usually use them as a comparison point; deciding either in my superiority or setting myself up in jealousy of their capabilities. 

And wellㅡ that’s not a very strong thing to do. 

***

I realized just how debilitating my anti-girl mindset was after a few gym sessions with a new friend of mine. We’d met in classes, and made a pact to go to the gym together. 

She was infinitely better than me in all the obvious respects; she spent more time putting herself together than I did, and clearly had more moneyㅡ she always looked ready for a photoshoot, makeup and everything. While I could deal with that easily enough, when I realized she was easily more organized than me and was decently more skilled in class than I was, I started to get more and more defensive. 

When we worked out I spent the time deep in my own head making fun of everything she did. Wow, I’d think. She wasn’t even at half the resistance I was at. Wow, I’d think. I can’t believe she refuses to work out her upper body, doesn’t she want to be strong? Wow, I’d think. Look at what she’s wearingㅡ is she here for the gym or for someone else? Wow, I’d think, she hasn’t evenㅡ

***

I guess it’s time for me to grow up, then. Stop the unnecessary judgment, the comparisons. Girls should be allowed to exist in their own spaces without being held to a standard that doesn’t also rear its ugly head against boys. 

Because girls are tough, capable, strong and fast. Because I am tough, capable, strong and fast. We can be all of these things together, at the same time, in the same space. 

And we can be a multitude of other things, too.