It’s pretty messed up that some things have a particularly negative aspect about them, purely because they’re perceived as being “girly”, as if this is somehow a lesser thing.
So, a thread for stuff like that. If it’s pretty, cute, nice or kawaii… post about it. Or talk about how it’s all kinds of messed up that this sort of stuff is derided while girls liking traditionally blokey things is lauded.
I’m a non-ironic fan of MLP:FiM. My Monday mornings are just better with a new episode of that to watch. A dose of unadulterated niceness to kick the week off.
And there’s
which I’m now a few minutes into and looks great. More suggestions of stuff like this would be, well, nice.
If you go look at other time periods, the color associations with gender have changed several times. So this is one of those things that is literally just a “trend”, and will eventually change again. You should apologize to nobody for your personal color preferences. And I personally, as a middle-aged White guy, have a collection of Gloomy Bears on my bed.
What doesn’t appear to have changed all that much (or at least with not the amount of swing as, say, the use of pink) is the reactions to whatever society considers to be “unmanly”.
Details may change, but attitudes remain.
I like the idea of “manliness” but not as an opposite to “womanliness” and it is only incidentally an opposite to literal “girliness” in the same way it’s an opposite to “boyishness.” For me it’s just about being a grown up and knowing how to own up and how to show up. That kind of “manliness” I’m happy to embrace.
Meanwhile, I have a stuffed lobster on my bed and I paint my toenails. I started because they I’ve got some hideous toenails, but now it’s a force of habit. I’ll forget they’re painted and take off my shoes to go swimming or something and I’m always surprised when people seem shocked. I kind of get it when people are amused, but it’s really just a coat of paint. Relax.
Even a couple of my past partners have teased, ‘You write like a girl.’ To which I retorted: ‘Why yes, my handwriting is pristinely legible, thankyouverymuch.’
Seriously, I worked hard to improve my handwriting. I went with what felt best to my hand, wrist, and fingers. (Okay, and switched to a typographic ‘a’ because it’s cute. Bite me.) But it’s so much more legible than it was eight years ago. Yes, it’s a little curvy but we’re not talking the vertical ellipsoid curves stereotypical of teen girl diaries. These are grown-up curves, with grace and stance. Like ballet.
My seven year old son loves that show, also Sofia the First. It started because they were things he can share with his younger sister, but he also just really digs them.
With school starting I had considered talking to him about cooling down a bit on the MLP. Letting your kids be themselves and trying to cue them in that groupthink is out there and hurts, it’s a tough balance. But this is the kid who, after having mom paint his nails, asked me to spike his mohawk (given up a month before when he realized how much work that was). When I asked him why he replied,
“The other kids are going to make fun of my nails, so I want them to know up front I don’t care.”
As a criticism, that would just confuse me.
But I write like I type, with lots of crossing out, mistakes and wildly varying degrees of legibility. …shrugs…
Your kid is cooler than the others by at least, oh, 20%. So whatever you’re doing, it’s working.
He’ll be disappointed this time. The dark green is a much prettier colour, but next time, yep. Full neon UV-glow green.
I think I see what you’re getting at there and I want to make a more in-depth reply to this, but it’ll have to wait until later when the brain is a touch more in-focus.
I think that poses an interesting question. I remember practicing handwriting exercises with boys and girls using the same books and examples, but there does seem to be some difference between handwriting styles. Obviously, it is not a fixed thing, with lots of exceptions, but still something that people notice. Does anyone have any expertise on why that would be?
FYI, I was obsessed with Charles L Dodgson as a teenager, to the point of spending about a year carefully copying his handwritten notes and letters, so that I could write comfortably and convincingly like CLD. I have kept it up, and added some elements of my own style, but my handwriting is still recognizably 1850s Oxford.
When I had the opportunity recently to renovate, repaint, and decorate my room in the house I live in, I put up this wall-sized decal, which may be girly/effeminate or something, I really don’t know – the reactions have been wide ranging. But it makes me happy.
ETA: According to the marketers, blokes aren’t supposed to like glittery, pretty stuff. Not a single pic of a bloke drinking this on their website. Which is rubbish, because everyone in space drinks shimmery purple glitter-booze.
Must get around to watching that. Original and reboot.
I wouldn’t call myself that, purely because to me it goes alongside being part of a greater fandom, which I don’t really do. It don’t half carry a lot of baggage as a term though.
