Feminity

I’ve observed that women don’t always think it’s OK to be ‘feminine’. “I hate pink, I never wear skirts, I never cried when I fell over,” and so on.

I wonder if going beyond a certain level of femininity is not so much a gender issue as a ‘character flaw’ in any person and any age – but has not been perceived as such. You can imagine people saying that weakness is weakness, or softness softness, no matter where it’s found, and that it’s nearly always to be despised. Nobody wants to be seen as a ‘mark’ in any way, and yet it’s still described as a predominantly feminine thing.

Giggling is regarded as feminine, but I remember going through a spell of that, and was helpless! It must have been a hormonal thing for older girls. It’s bad enough when you’re on your own, but when there are two or three of you, all about the same age, you can keep each other going. You don’t even know why you’re laughing. Life just seems as though it’s bubbling over with peculiarity. Something that’s not mentioned so much, if ever, is that around the same time I found just about everything made me cry. Not sure that has changed, though the giggling has long since gone.

It can’t just be girls, though…? Boys giggle and cry too.

I’ve lived a sheltered life in many ways, but it’s also been a life of freedom. The world ‘sheltered’ brings up the image of a girl living confined under one roof for most of her girlhood (and maybe beyond), but if that girl is living her life not knowing about certain assumptions or ways of life, and not fearing all the same things that other people fear, then she’s free in many ways.

Cloudburst

Well I did ask for this. “More rain, please” I begged, as I watched the grass go yellow and the duck pond disappearing. Only two days ago I passed the pond to check its progress, and it was still drawing away from the rim. The mud at the bottom was exposed, and there was a Stella Artois bottle stuck in it, neck first. I thought of wading out to get it but didn’t want to get muddy – I would probably slip and fall straight into what was left of the pond, and then die of some obscure scummy disease. Why must people drop their rubbish? They do it out of sheer spite now, but maybe one day they’ll stop and look around, and realize they live here too.

Or perhaps they’ll never realize it. They will forever imagine they live in someone else’s world.

It was damp and cool yesterday, but today when I set off to walk Thundercloud, I only got about 5 minutes away from my house when the heavens opened. I was warned by some very large spots of rain and dug out my umbrella from my wheelie bag. By the time the umbrella was open, the rain was slashing down in a fury, and the wind tried to bash the metal frame against my face and twist it out of shape. It cut sideways and got me wet anyway, so I turned round and hurried home. I don’t mind rain normally, but I had no particular desire to experience that all the way to Thundercloud’s house and back, with the dog walk itself in the middle.

So, no dog walk.

Diddums vs School Bullies?

The local press has been full of the subject of school bullying. The children who are bullied are separated out from the crowd (put in a room on their own etc) while the bullies are allowed to go on as normal. Nothing changes, and the bullied children feel no happier – in fact they start to despair as nothing is being achieved.

Mum has been reading all this and is livid.

Someone wrote in to the paper and said they didn’t even bother trying to deal with the school – they went straight to the police, who had no qualms about dealing directly with the bullies. Problem sorted.

We were discussing this, and Mum said emphatically, “You had no problems with bullies. If anybody tried anything, you turned on them.”

I did?

It was one of those comments that leave you feeling a little bemused. It’s true I don’t remember having much trouble with bullies but I was the quiet sort who occasionally attracted unwelcome attention – I wasn’t immune. I don’t remember getting particularly upset, but in those days they didn’t wield knives (well, one did!), nor did they do any happy slapping. They just taunted you or took your tuck shop money. Then I made friends with them so they couldn’t hound me any more.

If I got upset about anything at school, it wasn’t the other kids – I remember hating Wednesday because it finished with Volleyball and Miss Roaralot. Thursdays were dreaded because of the Home Economics teacher. She gave me a real telling off in front of the class for bringing granulated sugar instead of caster sugar.

I remember shouting at a friend who had been showing me some unpleasantness for several days – the look on her face was interesting! I don’t think she thought me capable of it, but we didn’t fall out as a result. It was her boyfriend who was responsible for that, ultimately – he was so possessive he didn’t want her to spend any time with me, and she just accepted it.

I never felt people my own age could do me much damage; there were no fears about what would happen after school or during it. Perhaps I just lived in a different time and place, if not a different planet…