I have always known that I will be limited because I was born and wrapped in a pink blanket. Pink balloons adorned the mailbox pronouncing "It's a Girl!" at the eager new parent's house, while my grandparents worried over whether or not I would be as smart as the baby boy my mom's best friend had delivered a few months earlier. As a child I ran with that boy all the time, and I am in photos it is difficult to tell which of us is which, as my parents had an affinity for chopping my hair short and dressing me in fairly androgynous clothes. I was a rambunctious girl, prone to rolling in the dirt, climbing precariously stacked objects, and getting into fights with the boys in my neighborhood. This was supported by my family, who carried an underlying concern about how I would suffer in America due to my gender. At age three when I would sit and watch "Barney" squealing every time the beautiful Cody graced my preschool presence by walking on screen my father was already concerned that my "boy obsession" would hold me back in life.
While my parents simply tried to toughen me up by shortening my hyper-feminine name to the more assertive one that sounded strong, and by enrolling me in sport after another my grandfather had other methods of how to make me a girl who would survive in the real world. As a blue collar, backwoods man who had spent his entire life in factories trying to scrape together enough money to send my mom to college he had experienced a lot of the wold, and the ugly discrimination that people face. Beginning at a very young age I started doing "boy's work" that would make me more likely to survive in a world run by men. Between doing carpentry in the garage, learning about electrician's work, fishing in my Uncle's pond, and learning about what had happened to the rest of the deer whose antlers currently resided on a plaque above the workbench I became a tough-as-nails, rough-and-tumble, country girl.
At the same time that I was learning about how to clean a shotgun, gut a fish, and jump a car, I was also learning traditional women's work. My mom taught me to hem dresses, stitch rips, and reattach buttons. Nan taught me the secrets of Southern cooking, and by the age of seven I could bake snickerdoodles and have sweet tea brewed and iced in time for when everyone wanted to take their afternoon sit-down. I have the manners of Scarlett O'Hara, I can clean a house better than a maid service, and I am well-trained in the art of child rearing (which I have put to use in a babysitting business that is coveted in my hometown).
Now as a young adult I have a unique personality that can only be described as "rough-and-tumble girly girl" which I believe was greatly influenced by the way I was raised. And I was raised the way I was due to the social conventions that surround being a girl in America. In some countries my parents simply would have committed infanticide, gotten rid of my body, and claimed I was a tragically stillborn child. America has moved forward from that time, but still women suffer in the shadow of men. I was reared with the feminine rules that govern the South because as a girl I am required to be able to sip sweet tea, bake lemon squares and cook gumbo, and keep my head down. I was also brought up with the skills that dads generally teach their sons because my grandfather didn't want me to be useless in the workforce, a girl that guys would walk on and take advantage of. So I learned to shoot, fight, work on cars, and hold my own in a discussion about politics. I am not resentful of this, I enjoy both sides of my personality and I treasure the memories I have of baking with my Nan, decorating before family members came for a party, as well as the memories I have of my grandfather letting me check the oil in my mom's car, or sitting at the range and shooting over huge towers of Diet Rite cans. I just question whether it is fair that this only happens to girls. I certainly haven't heard of families freaking out when they had a boy because they thought his gender would keep him from being president.
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