heels

"Why aren't you....."

I'm tired today.  I feel, as a woman, I've been tired for quite some time now, but after I was told I should have my "chick card" revoked because of a basket of tennies and slippers (aka flip flops), I just felt deflated.  Mind you this basket sits just a few feet away from a huge bookshelf which is occupied entirely by heels.  Nonetheless and once again, I'm just not 'girly' enough.  But since everyone seems so interested in this, here's the deal.  

I don't put bows in my hair - in fact, it annoys me.  I don't like the color pink as some sort of feminine statement.  I don't like helpless-acting girls or women who dumb themselves down. I wear a minimal amount of make up.  I prefer to be wearing slippers and board shorts and a tank top, to dressing like a museum piece - though I don't always loathe dressing like a museum piece (there is probably some hearty debate to be had about whether I can pull that off, though).  I don't care what people think about the fact that I'm a tomboy.  I like sports.  I like cars.  I like being outside and doing things that involve getting sweaty and sometimes dirty.  

I also like theater and music and the symphony.  I like going to nice restaurants and going dancing and getting dressed up once in a while.  However the presence of the items in the previous paragraph seem to perpetually make me undeserving of my "chick card".  If this was the first - or even tenth time I'd heard that, it might not annoy me, but since it's pretty much on a repeating reel, I'm both perplexed and irritated.  

I don't go on about how every man needs to be a certain way, so why must so many of my Y counterparts go on about me?  Every man does not need to be able to fix or build any and everything.  Every man does not need to be the most stellar athlete in the world.  Every man does not need to dress just so or wear said shoes or have said hair.  I wouldn't put that on someone, because that essentially reduces who they are to a few things and ignores who they are inside, completely.  So why must women, and me in particular, be subjected to that?  Why am I reduced to whether I wear a skirt to work everyday, how big my shoe collection is and how dolled up I get to go to the grocery store?  

Again, this one instance by itself is not enough to upset me in the normal course of things, but it's something I've dealt with for pretty much my entire life, which leads me to believe I'm not the only one who gets picked on for not being useless and girly, so I'm going to speak up about how grating that is.  

I feel I've made my point here and my irritation with this subject is growing, so I'll let it go.  Suffice it to say however, apparently a nerve has been struck and the only way for me to get over it today will be to........do a sport until I'm too tired to be upset anymore.  How ironic.