I have always been a “girly girl.” I love the color pink more than anything in the world, I love spending hours doing my make-up and I enjoy buying clothes and doing my hair. However, I wasn’t always comfortable showing it because I thought liking stereotypically girly things was embarrassing.
When I was little, I always made it known that my favorite color was blue, told my parents I didn’t like dolls and never let my mom fix my hair before or after school. I didn’t like to show my emotions so I refused to cry in front of people or admit I was upset, even though I was, and still am, incredibly emotional. I simply made it a personal mission to prove I wasn’t another one of the girls.
I didn’t dislike any of the girly activities I claimed to hate, but I associated femininity with weakness and I assumed it was something to be ashamed of. Growing up, all my cousins were boys and they made sure I knew I wasn’t as strong as them since we were old enough to speak and play together. Whenever I complained, my aunts told me the boys were right and that I shouldn’t even play with them because I needed to behave like a little lady.
I was constantly reminded that I wasn’t equal to the boys, so I took it upon myself to prove to everyone in my life that I would never fit in with the girls. I wanted my friends to see me as one of “the guys” and I wanted to earn the opportunity to play with my cousins. I thought rejecting femininity would make them see me as an equal and someone worth including in all activities.
I managed to convince myself that I didn’t like anything “girly” by constantly repeating in my mind that I couldn’t participate in stereotypical activities because they made me look weak. I refused to learn how to use makeup or paint my nails when my mom tried to teach me, but at night I binge-watched makeup tutorials online and looked at clothes in my mom’s old magazines.
Everything changed when I got to the seventh grade. I grew apart from my guy friends and started talking to some girls in my class instead. When I got to know them, I quickly abandoned my mission of being considered one of “the boys.” After spending some time with my new friends, listening to their conversations and analyzing how they behaved, I realized the girls were equally strong, smarter and even funnier than all the guy friends I’ve ever had, and they were all those things while still embracing their femininity.
Expanding my social circle gave me much-needed perspective and it helped me understand I didn’t need to pretend to be something I wasn’t just to be considered strong. My new friends were a clear example that it was possible to be strong while wearing makeup, it was possible to lead a class discussion and love clothes and the color pink.
I was completely wrong for associating femininity with weakness. It was finally my turn to embrace femininity and my friends made sure to help me do it.
I was awful at doing my makeup and hair because I refused to learn when my mom offered to teach me all those years ago, so my friends taught me instead. We had weekly sleepovers where we spent hours learning how to style our hair, experimenting with makeup styles and talking about emotions until the sun came up.
It was a little hard for me to feel fully comfortable being a “girly girl” at first. It was what I truly wanted but all those years of associating weakness with girlhood were hard to shake.
I slowly started getting comfortable showing my feminine side with the support of my friends. They encouraged me to try clothes I wanted to wear when I felt insecure and never judged me when I started to figure out how to style my curly hair. My friends made me feel safe and supported, allowing me to figure out who I was and how I wanted to portray myself to the world.
I eventually asked my parents to switch the color of my room to a muted pink and I started dressing like I’d always wanted. I felt stronger and more sure of myself when I stopped trying to prove to others that I wasn’t weak just because I was a girl and I understood that girls don’t have to be a certain way to be equal to guys.
My friends are a crucial part of who I am. They have been with me through every stage of my journey and they are the reason I embraced femininity in the first place. They helped me realize there’s no right or wrong way to experience girlhood and there is no shame in being like “other girls.”
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