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As a young woman, I think there is an intense amount of pressure to conform to trends, looks and expectations. When I was 13, I remember everyone wanted to have straight hair which was backcombed at the top, clothes from Pineapple, and any makeup they could pinch from their older sisters on their face. I, up until this point, had grown up in an environment that wasn’t particularly gender driven. Due to living in the countryside, much of my life was spent mucking around in fields, climbing trees, building fairy dens, and playing on the tire swing out in the woods. My world was unaffected by what I was supposed to look like, or how I was supposed to be as a young girl, due to it never being exposed to those expectations. I remember going into primary school and cringing when other girls showed me their diamond earrings protruding from their pink, sore ears; I didn’t want that, and I was never interested by it.
However, as I entered secondary school, I lost that sense of identity I had once felt. Soon, I was engulfed in earrings and powder brushes, make-up and boys. My life had become this surreal situation in which everyday, instead of kicking a football around with friends, I was being asked if I had seen that new dress in New Look that someone had seen Pixie Lott wearing. The scrappy jeans I wore on weekends had become weird, and not owning a bra yet had condemned me to the uncool pile of the social heap.
Accepting the losing battle, I attempted to join the masses. I bought school skirts too short, began pinching my older sisters make-up, and generally attempted to invest some interest in the boys outside of school. However, I felt this twinge within me. As the years went on, and as the push up bras became more common and the makeup even heavier, I found myself conflicting with the idea that I didn’t actually enjoy being a girl. When my friends curled their extensions and stuffed their bra, I sat on the sidelines, confused as to what I was doing it for. I didn’t enjoy having my bra wire digging into my chest, and from the distortion of my proportions, I became confused as to what my body was meant to be for. I soon became a product of what was expected by my friends, by my school and by boys. If I ever was seen in trousers or jeans, it was challenged. Did I want boys to think I was a lesbian? Did I want to dress like a boy? The taunts were eventually laughed off and the skirt was adjusted even higher, but I realised that the answer had been yes. Yes, I did want to dress in boyish clothes; yes, I did want to be different; no, I didn’t care what boys thought.
It actually took until I was nineteen before an inner acceptance occurred. I opened my drawer one day, looked at my garishly pink pushup bra, my short dress and the makeup that I'd barely touched, and I began to bin. It was a complex feeling of confusion; I was throwing away the one thing that made me comfortably sit amongst other girls without being different, but I was throwing away everything that made me alien to myself. Drawers cleansed, I went into Topshop the next day and bought my first proper trouser suit and various other ‘androgynous’ outfits.
It’s not that I condemn anyone who wants to dress feminine; as my style has developed since my rebirth, I have reintroduced dresses and become more embracing of my womanhood. However, it has all been on my grounds and in the realms of what I consider to be feminine.
Do not lose who you are, who you have always been, to be found amongst society's crowd. If you want to be unique and if you aren’t interested in your genders typical stances, break away from them. Your own visions of beauty and self-acceptance are more rewarding than anyone else’s; be true to you. Find yourself and love every minute of it.
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