At Odds With
FEMININITY By: Katherine Arrington Art by: Penelope Spurr
When I was five years old,
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my parents told me not to walk on the rails of a bridge. I obeyed⌠for a few hours. But the next day, I went back to the bridge and walked along its railing, until I got to the end and fell off. I injured my foot and ended up in the hospital getting stitches. I suppose this example shows that I have always hated being labeled by anyone other than myself, being limited in who I can be and what I can do. For the most part, as I have grown up, I have shed my rebellious outlook on rules and instructions. Instead, I have found myself gravitating towards bending the boundaries of what society dictates I must say, do, and be. Yet it is this attitude that has culminated in a struggle between myself and my femininity as I have tried to walk
the line between rejecting the misogynistic expectations of our society for how a woman should act and celebrating my identity as a woman. As a child, I dreamed of being a princess, I played with Barbie dolls, and my favorite color was pink. I loved dresses and skirts; I insisted upon having long hair, and I was passionate about my love for both roses and flowers (separate entities in my mind). Yet as I grew older and witnessed the portrayal of women in the media, in books, and even in my own life, I realized that I did not want to play second fiddle to a man, to be a secretary to a lawyer, a nurse to a doctor, a teacher to a principal, a first lady to a president, or worst of all (in my mind), a housewife to a husband. I wanted to be strong, to be bold, to be a leader, to be
