On being a Tomboy...

[Tengu]

Nay, I simply have never been in touch with my inner female...if I even do have an inner female. (I know some of you men do!)

<Pauses to have a nasty fight with her mother over wearing a dress>

As Firecrest said in the thread on AS is it a feature?

Were you a tomboy or did no one notice?

 

[firecrest]

I was a tomboy. I played with boys toys, my friends were boys, I climbed trees. I did not play dress up or doctors and nurses those kinds of games didnt make sense to me , things like lego were much more fun.
Ive realised though as I got older, I am feminine (much to my horror) I nag like a woman, Im soft, I have the mood swings and I like my men to be proper men!

 

[xylaria]

I was a tomboy, and there is still big chunks of female behaviour that I just don't do. It was fashionable in the seventies to not genderize toys, but I remember I wanted an action man with a parachute, and so I made sindy one and threw it out the window repeatly until its heads fell off. I remember another doll got catapulted with a pair of tights at the dog kennel next door. That doll didn't survive either.

 

[British Red]

If its okay for a bloke to comment, I do wonder how much of gender bias to outdoorsy stuff is cultural?

Much of what we do - knowing plants, cooking, making and tending fires is not typically male biased in many cultures that actively use such skills.

My good lady is a much better shot than me, navigates far better, a great fire builder etc. Some things she is not so good at - axe work for example. However she's happy to kill, butcher and cook but for all that remains very feminine in looks and nature.

I've never understood the gender orientation of outdoorsy stuff - not much requires huge physical strength after all? I'm intrigues by the question certainly.

Red

 

[korvin karbon]

Dating sites should have a "bushcraft" option in the looking for field LOL

I think alot of if all comes from the parents BUT i do think some of it is genetic too.

nature and nurture working together and at times against each other

 

[sapper1]

I think the whole feminist and chauvanist thing is rubbish.There are things a woman can do better than a man and vice versa,but I will stoop as low as to say men are generally physically stronger than women and women are generally more emotionally /mentally stable than men.So for a person to feel they have to be a girl and play with girly toys or be a boy and ply with boy toys is probably caused by parent and peer pressure rather than gender.I myself can't see any fun being made to play with gender specific toys that you don't like.My kids play with what they enjoy playing with and do the things they enjoy doing.No child should have to be made to play with anything they don't want to or be made to be something they don't like being.That way leads to unbalanced adults.

 

[johnnytheboy]

My wife was a total tomboy when she was younger, she is a right girly girl nowadays

 

[bramble]

Hi there, I just thought id add a bit to this thread, its about my twins, the twiglets.They hate the colour pink, they do not like wearing dresses or skirts, well actually they dont have any now. They have both `boy` and `girl` toys, they go to cubs, they did try brownies but...yes it definatly was not for them. They love bushcrafting and the out doors, come rain or shine as many Moot bushcrafters can clarify. They are not squimish, they love getting dirty, they are definatly not `girly` girls at all, but they are still intouch with their feminin inner self, well from time to time, or when it suits them. And I love them as they are and would not want them to be something they dont want to be.

 

[Toddy]

Tomboy........first girl in the family in ages, the women folks hand sewed and smocked and embroidered pretty frocks for me from linen and silk; after chaniging me for the ninth time in a day my Mum gave up and made me dungarees

I read my brothers comics, couldn't understand the Bunty and the Jackie , played with bows and arrows, airguns, sword fights, cowboys and indians, sodjers, detested playing houses.

I do like pretty feminine things though, but I have a brilliant collection of shinies too
Feminine ? yes, and I do like masculine men; androgenous don't do it

Maybe Korvin karbon's onto something......

cheers,
Toddy