I was approaching my expiration date
I was nearly 13 and my mom asked me if
there was anything in particular I
wanted for Christmas I asked for
hairspray now this was an unusual
request for a number of reasons but it
was symptomatic of an identity crisis
my mom replied I can just run to the
store and pick you some up no problem
but I insisted it was worthy of a
line-item on my Christmas list in my
mind this bottle of white rain hairspray
might just solve a problem I was having
I didn’t know who I was anymore I was
desperately hoping that this magical
styling product would help transform me
from tomboy to girl I had always been a
tomboy I love baseball and fishing and
soccer and Star Wars I refuse to wear
dresses and I felt strong and confident
and free but then the whispers of social
pressure started eroding that confidence
the seventh graders were shaving their
legs I heard that on the bus at the
lunch table girls would talk about
fashion and makeup and I’d be pretending
to be busy with my homework but I also
felt nauseous wondering if blue
eyeshadow wouldn’t look good on me my
cheeks turned red when I was asked if I
could french braid my hair I could not
now I could recite the Chicago Cubs
starting lineup throw a curveball and
forge anyone’s signature but that didn’t
seem to impress anyone
so one evening in my bedroom I carefully
took down the ball caps and the baseball
pennants that were tacked into the wall
and I replaced them with posters of
teenage boys from Team B magazine I had
asked for a subscription as a stocking
stuffer I felt sad being a tomboy had
given me a certain strength and I felt
that strength expiring now fast forward
15 years and I’m working on a PhD at
communication and culture as part of my
dissertation research I was researching
tomboy narratives in part because I just
can’t get over that feeling of loss it
turns out I’m not the only tomboy who
experienced a sense of identity loss for
centuries tomboys have illuminated the
gender lessons circulating in our
culture I bet you didn’t know that the
term tomboy first referred to boys the
term described a rude boisterous boy who
drink too much and socialize with
wenches like tom foolery and Tomcat it
was a negative term in the 1600s the
term shifted to characterize an adult
woman one who violated the polite norms
of femininity she was crude rude
immodest like the word bitch operates
today it was used to stigmatize women
who didn’t know their place when the
term shifted to characterize a youthful
female it was an insult used to describe
a wild and untamed girl so it’s only
been a few decades that tomboy has
enjoyed a positive connotation today we
think about a tomboy as a young girl who
enjoys the activities we associate with
boyhood she’s sporty doesn’t mind
getting dirty and resists the girly girl
and importantly in today’s society
she is celebrated have you noticed how
brands love tomboys these days
tomboy is the new black these dramatic
shifts
and meaning tell us a lot about gender
norms in our culture so first time boys
were bad boys and then they were bad
girls but Tom boys have always been
gender rebels think about it before
we’re even born
our gendered lives are being scripted
for us excited parents to be plan
elaborate gender reveals if it’s a boy
we know to paint the room blue and buy
trucks and footballs and if it’s a girl
be very very prepared for pink eye
battle this pink plague every day I have
a two and a half year old daughter named
Lori and we made a conscious decision to
not dress her in pink or tape a boat or
hairless head or pierce her ears so of
course she was mistaken for a boy
without those girly signifiers now that
didn’t bother me but why are people so
obsessed with broadcasting boy or girl
from conception these labels they
provide shortcuts we think they tell us
how to interact with a child but these
labels don’t merely describe a kid they
prescribed a lifetime of behaviors that
limit who they can be little girls are
praised for princess dresses and signed
up for dance class and little boys are
told not to cry and the dolls are for
girls but the tomboy she represents this
temporary moment where rebelling against
gender norms is accepted even encouraged
it’s not the same for boys that want to
be feminine we may have learned to
embrace tomboys but sissies
are a different story and our gender
logic it makes sense why a young girl we
want to experience boyhood it’s a status
upgrade but if a young boy wants to act
like a girl it doesn’t make sense
it’s a demotion who would give up the
privileges of masculinity so how did the
tomboy become celebrated in part when
title 9 passed and 90
72 it opened the world of sports to an
entire generation of girls and as more
girls participated in sport the more it
was normalized and we saw it reflected
in popular culture there was an
explosion of imagery about tomboy girls
sporty girls became mainstream and
tomboy became a symbol of empowerment
and progress which always makes me
wonder why is it that we love tomboys
but still find feminists Carrie and then
it made sense the tomboy expires in our
culture tomboy identity is supposed to
be just a phase when I was doing my
research I read a lot of novels about
tomboy characters and I found the same
pattern that feminist scholars have
found plaguing girlhood literature for
centuries from Joe March and Little
Women – Katniss in The Hunger Games
rebellious girls grow out of it and take
their domesticated place that’s the
lesson in nearly every story about
tomboys take a look at some of these
covers the tomboy turned princess this
sums up a major theme or less subtle the
lizard Flanagan’s series now lizard is
the nickname for Elizabeth all tomboys
have nicknames by the way like lizard or
Joe or Frankie in seventh grade lizard
is on the baseball team and she starts
experimenting with makeup but by eighth
grade she goes full supermodel and
prefers to be called Elizabeth now I
would have loved these books if they
were available when I was a kid because
they were about table boys but
conversion of femininity is the major
theme trade in your Jersey for a prom
dress and you’ll live happily ever after
now you can say these are just innocent
coming-of-age stories something that we
all endure but why is it that the tomboy
always has to transform none of the male
characters transform in these
schoolyard romances and it’s not just
the fictional world where these lessons
resides I also read advice columns and
concerned parents would write in concern
about their tomboy daughters and even
the most progressive therapists would
reply don’t worry about it she’ll grow
out of it it’s just a phase this phase
theme really hit home a few months ago
I’m teaching a course for college
seniors called
gender and rhetoric and early in the
semester students had to present a
gender collage which was essentially a
slide show about some of the influences
in their life so I saw the toys they
loved the movies they watched on repeat
the TV characters are identified with
and nearly every woman during the course
of this short presentation casually
mentioned and this was my tomboy face as
though being confident and carefree was
something they tried on for a few years
so what happens if a tomboy challenges
her expiration date call it what you
want
tomboy style or tomboy chic until
recently you would never put the word
tomboy and fashion in the same sentence
it was an oxymoron the whole point of
being a tomboy was resisting feminine
norms whether that was in your clothing
your hair style or your attitude but
peruse the latest fashion magazines and
blogs and tomboy chic is the latest
craze in case you’re confused tomboy
style is not about empowering women to
be more carefree about their appearance
no it’s not about adding a little butch
to your wardrobe it’s about taking
masculine style and sexing it up
I had a tie the magazine suggests
or a vest but supplement with smokey
eyeliners and deep red lips show off
your legs emphasize their femininity or
there are the qualifiers pretty tomboy
delicate tomboy sexy tomboy anything
that tempers that rebellious history so
tomboys these days are defined by a more
style than substance
women can be sporty but they have to be
sexy too
I mean we all know men love a woman who
can throw a football especially if she’s
in heels or a bikini I learned that by
watching The Bachelor so you know it’s
the boyfriend fit is another way that
women can try on masculinity is style
and I am actually wearing the boyfriend
blazer I don’t have a boyfriend so if
I’m technically allowed to wear this I
have a wife but they don’t make a wife
blazer so the truth is the gendered
clothing swap only operates in a single
direction why don’t they make girlfriend
style for guys it’s the same logic that
makes sissy an insult in our culture so
well might seem radical that tomboys are
trendy now what’s at stake in this
newfound parity tomboy is style takes an
enduring figure of gender rebellion and
turns her into a sexualized fashion
statement about conformity so what do we
lose when the tomboy is no longer a
gender rebel but a fashion rebel we lose
an appreciation for a century of
progress Tom boys have been Trailblazers
they want to wear pants they want to get
an education they want to have a voice
they wanted to vote they wanted to play
sports
Tom boys were instrumental in carving
the path that a lot of women and girls
enjoy today so what can we do to make
sure that the rebellious spirit of the
tomboy does not expire I think we need
to be wary of tomboy chic and recognize
it as the commodification of rebellion
and service of the male gaze and there
are some really cool brands that are
about empowering women and who are
unapologetically feminist and give back
to the community brands like wild Fame
which is actually the German word for
tomboy and I think we need to be aware
of how we unknowingly limit the
potential of our kids as soon as they’re
born we cast them in a gendered
performance we provide a script pink and
blue costumes elaborate sets um
props we need to encourage our kids our
daughters and our sons to tell their own
stories to go off-script
I know for me I’m gonna provide a script
for my daughter
where adventure and authenticity are
driving the plot and I will make sure
that she knows that the strong confident
little girl she is today
does not have an expiration date thank
you [Applause]
I was nearly 13 and my mom asked me if
there was anything in particular I
wanted for Christmas I asked for
hairspray now this was an unusual
request for a number of reasons but it
was symptomatic of an identity crisis
my mom replied I can just run to the
store and pick you some up no problem
but I insisted it was worthy of a
line-item on my Christmas list in my
mind this bottle of white rain hairspray
might just solve a problem I was having
I didn’t know who I was anymore I was
desperately hoping that this magical
styling product would help transform me
from tomboy to girl I had always been a
tomboy I love baseball and fishing and
soccer and Star Wars I refuse to wear
dresses and I felt strong and confident
and free but then the whispers of social
pressure started eroding that confidence
the seventh graders were shaving their
legs I heard that on the bus at the
lunch table girls would talk about
fashion and makeup and I’d be pretending
to be busy with my homework but I also
felt nauseous wondering if blue
eyeshadow wouldn’t look good on me my
cheeks turned red when I was asked if I
could french braid my hair I could not
now I could recite the Chicago Cubs
starting lineup throw a curveball and
forge anyone’s signature but that didn’t
seem to impress anyone
so one evening in my bedroom I carefully
took down the ball caps and the baseball
pennants that were tacked into the wall
and I replaced them with posters of
teenage boys from Team B magazine I had
asked for a subscription as a stocking
stuffer I felt sad being a tomboy had
given me a certain strength and I felt
that strength expiring now fast forward
15 years and I’m working on a PhD at
communication and culture as part of my
dissertation research I was researching
tomboy narratives in part because I just
can’t get over that feeling of loss it
turns out I’m not the only tomboy who
experienced a sense of identity loss for
centuries tomboys have illuminated the
gender lessons circulating in our
culture I bet you didn’t know that the
term tomboy first referred to boys the
term described a rude boisterous boy who
drink too much and socialize with
wenches like tom foolery and Tomcat it
was a negative term in the 1600s the
term shifted to characterize an adult
woman one who violated the polite norms
of femininity she was crude rude
immodest like the word bitch operates
today it was used to stigmatize women
who didn’t know their place when the
term shifted to characterize a youthful
female it was an insult used to describe
a wild and untamed girl so it’s only
been a few decades that tomboy has
enjoyed a positive connotation today we
think about a tomboy as a young girl who
enjoys the activities we associate with
boyhood she’s sporty doesn’t mind
getting dirty and resists the girly girl
and importantly in today’s society
she is celebrated have you noticed how
brands love tomboys these days
tomboy is the new black these dramatic
shifts
and meaning tell us a lot about gender
norms in our culture so first time boys
were bad boys and then they were bad
girls but Tom boys have always been
gender rebels think about it before
we’re even born
our gendered lives are being scripted
for us excited parents to be plan
elaborate gender reveals if it’s a boy
we know to paint the room blue and buy
trucks and footballs and if it’s a girl
be very very prepared for pink eye
battle this pink plague every day I have
a two and a half year old daughter named
Lori and we made a conscious decision to
not dress her in pink or tape a boat or
hairless head or pierce her ears so of
course she was mistaken for a boy
without those girly signifiers now that
didn’t bother me but why are people so
obsessed with broadcasting boy or girl
from conception these labels they
provide shortcuts we think they tell us
how to interact with a child but these
labels don’t merely describe a kid they
prescribed a lifetime of behaviors that
limit who they can be little girls are
praised for princess dresses and signed
up for dance class and little boys are
told not to cry and the dolls are for
girls but the tomboy she represents this
temporary moment where rebelling against
gender norms is accepted even encouraged
it’s not the same for boys that want to
be feminine we may have learned to
embrace tomboys but sissies
are a different story and our gender
logic it makes sense why a young girl we
want to experience boyhood it’s a status
upgrade but if a young boy wants to act
like a girl it doesn’t make sense
it’s a demotion who would give up the
privileges of masculinity so how did the
tomboy become celebrated in part when
title 9 passed and 90
72 it opened the world of sports to an
entire generation of girls and as more
girls participated in sport the more it
was normalized and we saw it reflected
in popular culture there was an
explosion of imagery about tomboy girls
sporty girls became mainstream and
tomboy became a symbol of empowerment
and progress which always makes me
wonder why is it that we love tomboys
but still find feminists Carrie and then
it made sense the tomboy expires in our
culture tomboy identity is supposed to
be just a phase when I was doing my
research I read a lot of novels about
tomboy characters and I found the same
pattern that feminist scholars have
found plaguing girlhood literature for
centuries from Joe March and Little
Women – Katniss in The Hunger Games
rebellious girls grow out of it and take
their domesticated place that’s the
lesson in nearly every story about
tomboys take a look at some of these
covers the tomboy turned princess this
sums up a major theme or less subtle the
lizard Flanagan’s series now lizard is
the nickname for Elizabeth all tomboys
have nicknames by the way like lizard or
Joe or Frankie in seventh grade lizard
is on the baseball team and she starts
experimenting with makeup but by eighth
grade she goes full supermodel and
prefers to be called Elizabeth now I
would have loved these books if they
were available when I was a kid because
they were about table boys but
conversion of femininity is the major
theme trade in your Jersey for a prom
dress and you’ll live happily ever after
now you can say these are just innocent
coming-of-age stories something that we
all endure but why is it that the tomboy
always has to transform none of the male
characters transform in these
schoolyard romances and it’s not just
the fictional world where these lessons
resides I also read advice columns and
concerned parents would write in concern
about their tomboy daughters and even
the most progressive therapists would
reply don’t worry about it she’ll grow
out of it it’s just a phase this phase
theme really hit home a few months ago
I’m teaching a course for college
seniors called
gender and rhetoric and early in the
semester students had to present a
gender collage which was essentially a
slide show about some of the influences
in their life so I saw the toys they
loved the movies they watched on repeat
the TV characters are identified with
and nearly every woman during the course
of this short presentation casually
mentioned and this was my tomboy face as
though being confident and carefree was
something they tried on for a few years
so what happens if a tomboy challenges
her expiration date call it what you
want
tomboy style or tomboy chic until
recently you would never put the word
tomboy and fashion in the same sentence
it was an oxymoron the whole point of
being a tomboy was resisting feminine
norms whether that was in your clothing
your hair style or your attitude but
peruse the latest fashion magazines and
blogs and tomboy chic is the latest
craze in case you’re confused tomboy
style is not about empowering women to
be more carefree about their appearance
no it’s not about adding a little butch
to your wardrobe it’s about taking
masculine style and sexing it up
I had a tie the magazine suggests
or a vest but supplement with smokey
eyeliners and deep red lips show off
your legs emphasize their femininity or
there are the qualifiers pretty tomboy
delicate tomboy sexy tomboy anything
that tempers that rebellious history so
tomboys these days are defined by a more
style than substance
women can be sporty but they have to be
sexy too
I mean we all know men love a woman who
can throw a football especially if she’s
in heels or a bikini I learned that by
watching The Bachelor so you know it’s
the boyfriend fit is another way that
women can try on masculinity is style
and I am actually wearing the boyfriend
blazer I don’t have a boyfriend so if
I’m technically allowed to wear this I
have a wife but they don’t make a wife
blazer so the truth is the gendered
clothing swap only operates in a single
direction why don’t they make girlfriend
style for guys it’s the same logic that
makes sissy an insult in our culture so
well might seem radical that tomboys are
trendy now what’s at stake in this
newfound parity tomboy is style takes an
enduring figure of gender rebellion and
turns her into a sexualized fashion
statement about conformity so what do we
lose when the tomboy is no longer a
gender rebel but a fashion rebel we lose
an appreciation for a century of
progress Tom boys have been Trailblazers
they want to wear pants they want to get
an education they want to have a voice
they wanted to vote they wanted to play
sports
Tom boys were instrumental in carving
the path that a lot of women and girls
enjoy today so what can we do to make
sure that the rebellious spirit of the
tomboy does not expire I think we need
to be wary of tomboy chic and recognize
it as the commodification of rebellion
and service of the male gaze and there
are some really cool brands that are
about empowering women and who are
unapologetically feminist and give back
to the community brands like wild Fame
which is actually the German word for
tomboy and I think we need to be aware
of how we unknowingly limit the
potential of our kids as soon as they’re
born we cast them in a gendered
performance we provide a script pink and
blue costumes elaborate sets um
props we need to encourage our kids our
daughters and our sons to tell their own
stories to go off-script
I know for me I’m gonna provide a script
for my daughter
where adventure and authenticity are
driving the plot and I will make sure
that she knows that the strong confident
little girl she is today
does not have an expiration date thank
you [Applause]
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