you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]TalerTest 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (12 children)

how?

[–]MyLongestJourney 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (11 children)

It denotes the harm of gender stereotypes. If you are female and like stereotypical masculine activities you are dubbed a tomboy..

[–]piylot 10 insightful - 2 fun10 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 2 fun -  (9 children)

But from my experience tomboy wasn't used pejoratively, girls happily called themselves tomboys, and it didn't have any implications about being in the wrong body. It does have "boy" in the name, but nobody would make any mistake in understanding tomboys were girls.

[–]TalerTest 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

yes that's exactly what I was going to say. Tomboy has always meant girl.

[–]MyLongestJourney 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Your experience. Lets face it society usually bullies girls and boys who do not fit gender roles and expectations.

[–]Wot 1 insightful - 4 fun1 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 4 fun -  (2 children)

Tomboy still implies that to like "masculine" things means you are male-like. Male adjacent. It's opposite, girly girl on the other hand reduces womanhood in its entirety to femininity. It implies actual, real, proper womanhood is femininity; that's why whatever is "girly" is only feminine. That's why fems looks at studs/butch/gnc and think they want to be men because to reject femininity means you reject womanhood since both are seen as being the same.

[–]piylot 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Hmm, but the word "masculine" also means male-like. I'm not sure that there's any way to use a descriptor that avoids that. And when we all understand what masculine activities/interests/appearance means, can we avoid having a word for it at all without trying to deny a pattern that's prominent in our culture?

[–]Wot 1 insightful - 4 fun1 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

And when we all understand what masculine activities/interests/appearance means, can we avoid having a word for it at all without trying to deny a pattern that's prominent in our culture?

Nothing wrong with having a word for something but it should exist along side gender abolitionism or else we get very much the more of the same arbitrary gender roles perpetuation and the TRA bs we are dealing with today.

[–]candiedDagon 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

During what decade was tomboy used for girls? I’m a millennial and I know I had heard the word but didn’t personally know any self-referred tomboys. Maybe I didn’t do enough sports.

[–][deleted] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

90s kid. I was called a tomboy by my friends because I liked stuff like climbing trees, playing outside and didn't like girly things. I don't see myself as very masculine but hey that's what I got called when I was a kid. I was fine with it, I don't think people were being mean spirited. I also loved books with characters who were tomboys. I was a huge Enid Blyton fan and those books had girls and boys who went off on adventures and got into all sorts of scrapes. Some of the girls were tomboys and some were girly girls but it wasn't negative. They had good stories.

[–]chickfactor 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

90s for sure. I was called a tomboy and called myself a tomboy. I don’t recall it ever being used as an insult. It just meant a girl who wasn’t girly.

[–]piylot 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

In the 2000s for me (UK), and don't recall it being used as an insult, though I wasn't particularly a tomboy.

[–]Wot 2 insightful - 4 fun2 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

Exactly. You're not just a regular girl. It implies that to like these "masculine" things you are male-like. If you were properly female behaving and liked stereotypical feminine activities you'd be a girly girl. Female like. It's no big step then from, "I don't like femininity" to "I must not be a female."