More on what being a girl means to me has been surfacing over the last week or so. I was talking about all this with my therapist last weekend and I started off by telling her about my mom who when I was growing up seemed like a movie star to me. She was (I thought) stunningly beautiful. She always wore Channel perfume and men would stop on the street and whistle or just watch her walk away. She seemed to enjoy this type of attention, but I was absolutely mortified. I also noticed early on that she “played dumb” a lot. I found it infuriating, and I vowed that when I grew up I would never be like that.

Instead I focused on my brain and my creativity–being smart, competant, artistic–these were the goals. When I moved into young adulthood, and I began to get attention for the way I looked, how I was developing, etc., I had no idea what to do with it. I just wanted to be liked for me. I rebelled. In between all that, I tried on different personas with varying degrees of conformity. The conformity never lasted, and like you, I always knew I was different, but I heard or read things or caught glimpses that made me hold on expecting to find those like-minded souls. And I did–many of them in high school, very few in my strange college years, but there were a couple. Thank goodness that in reality people are a much more varied, multi-faceted, complex collection of oddities and quirks than they seem to be on the surface.

And now I am thinking of that scene in Harold and Maude where Maude is telling Harold she would like to be a sunflower most of all and then asks himwhat flower he would you like to be. Harold says “I don’t know. One of these, maybe.” and points to a bunch of daisies. “Why?” she asks him, and he says, “Because they’re all alike.” Maude, never missing a beat, says “Oooh, but they’re *not*. Look. See, some are smaller, some are fatter, some grow to the left, some to the right, some even have lost some petals. All *kinds* of observable differences. You see, Harold, I feel that much of the world’s sorrow comes from people who are *this*,” she points to the individual daisy, “Yet allow themselves be treated as *that*.” and she gestures to the field where they all look the “same.”

The older I get, the easier it is to identify me under all the layers of reaction and the messages I have received about who I am supposed to be as a woman. I know that at the end of the day, what matters to me is knowing who I am and being comfortable with that person, even (especially) if that person’s favorite color is pink, she obsesses over small dogs, and Cute Overload is her homepage. Oh, and she also happens to look really nice in a dress and likes the way it feels.

Also Kai, I too always loved the term “lipstick lesbian.” I thought it was a great way to remind people that sexuality is never limited to static, one-dimensional definitions of what it means to be gay or a woman or a feminist or whatever. Of course, I suppose people used it to try and put people in neat, well-defined categories. The only thing you can do is just be yourself–really and truly yourself. I think people are always surprised by that.

Anyway, I have rambled enough for now, but I do want to give you props for identifying the Geek Girl Image Wars as the new Madonna/Whore complex. Ha! Brilliant!

Love you muchly.

Interestingly, Sister Light, this is one of those topics that reminds me how different we are, for all our similarities. We are so much mirror-images (refering to personality, not physical appearance—though, that too!) We are so very similar, except for the ways in which we are exact opposites—the reversal of the mirror. I started out from the position of total girly-girlness, and found my way into a more realistic and feminist self image from there. Ramona can tell you stories about me refusing to wear anything but dresses when I was little—-I would cry and struggle when she tried to put pants on me. Later on, I went through the radicalization of the college years, the rejection of stereotypical femininity, but I didn’t want to put aside ALL things girly to be considered a legitimate voice. Some might use it pejoratively, but when I first heard the term ‘lipstick lesbian’, it was empowering. Yep, I’m a femme, and proud of it; I like pretty dresses and lacy lingerie and make-up and shoes. I’m also a femme who will happily ruin her manicure kicking your ass, if you make that necessary. I found I can be pretty and soft, and tough and independent and competent, all together, but it was a long road getting there.

To me, that’s the power in Lojo’s song: in giving the butch girls permission to connect with their femininity, she’s also giving girly-girls permission to connect with their tomboy side. It works beautifully both ways: what ever kind of girl you are, remember that you’re free to be all kinds of girl, as the day and your desires demand.

As to the messages your cousin gets at home, and that other young women get in the world: sigh. I don’t know how you get around it all. It’s so pervasive. But it seems to me that most people find their way to being who they are, eventually. People are pretty good at taking what works for them and leaving the rest. You’re absolutely right, what’s most needed is the room to experiment, to try out ideas and personas and find out who you really want to be. The all-pervasiveness of the media is combined blessing and curse: on the one hand, negative messages are unavoidable; on the other, it’s easier than ever to find voices in keeping with your own inclinations, if you don’t have them in your immediate family/friend circle. When I was young, I felt different from the people around me, and thought I might be the only one. Then I heard David Bowie and Adam Ant and Soft Cell and their like, and knew there was a tribe out there I belonged in. So instead of giving up or giving in, I held on to the idea that I just had to get to college, and there would be people I could really relate to. And OMG, there were SO MANY people there who thought and felt the way I did! It was so liberating to drop the conformity camouflage I’d worn throughout high school and finally explore who I was and what I wanted to be. I wonder now how much different it would have been if I’d had the internet and could have found the kind of community I craved before I went away to school. I imagine it’s easier for girls like me—like us—to find lifelines to hold onto until the day they can get free and take charge of their own lives.

There’s no winning the Geek Girl image wars: either you have the “smart girls are ugly/awkward/ungainly” stereotype, or you get the “she’s smart, but that’s OK, ‘cause she’s HAWT, too!” stereotype. It’s the new virgin/whore dilemma. Women still aren’t people in the mass culture; we’re objects. We’ve made big advancements, and I’ll take my right to vote and own property and be something other than nurse/teacher/wife at the price of sniping at my non-conforming body shape and life goals (by which I mean to say: I’m a nearly 40-year-old single, childless woman, and that suits me fine, even though popular culture would tell you I can’t possibly be happy with my life. Really, deep down, I must be desiring a quick trip down the aisle and an impreggening before it’s too late! Right? Right?!)

In fact, there’s no winning at all when you make your choices based on the external noise. Not wearing a dress you desire to avoid the disapproval of the Sisterhood is the SAME THING as wearing a dress you hate because Church-Daddy said you had to. True feminism means leaving women free to make their own choices; we don’t need a condemning Matriarchy passing judgment on us for not living up to an image of Ideal Wymynhood anymore than we need the Patriarchy trying to make obedient chattel of us all. Feminism, freedom, means living your life your way.

PS: Pictures of pretty you in the pretty dress, please!

Here’s the song from Lojo’s Website: http://lojorusso.com/mp3/Girrrl-hifi.mp3