What the fuck is a tomboy?
When I heard it was time for Massive’s yearly fashion-themed issue, I’ll admit I was a bit stumped. I’d never considered myself a particularly fashionable person. In fact, I’m more of a throw-on-whatever’s-clean kind of person. I don’t mean one of those, put together messy people either - I genuinely do not put much effort in. However, I became acutely aware that nailing down my personal style and putting it into a word was an extremely difficult task. When I was younger, I was described by adults as a tomboy, consistently dressing in my older brother’s hand-me-downs. Nowadays I just prefer to call myself queer. I still dress more on the ‘masculine’ side of the spectrum and tend to just find something that makes me feel comfortable, and wear it until it inevitably rips in an awkward place. The issue I have with the word ‘tomboy’, is that I have no idea what it means, but I might be completely gatekeeping it.
The struggle of wanting to dress in masculine clothes while not having the right body shape for them is a real one. Finding baggy jeans without looking like Adam Sandler, and t-shirts that don’t have a ridiculous neckline and show off a bit of boob is a real struggle. For this exact reason, the appearance of the oversized clothes trend was an exciting prospect for someone who didn’t enjoy dressing in the clothes that were prescribed to her based on her gender. When this trend came along - idealised images of conventionally attractive, skinny, and often white women were celebrated and propped up as an ideal middle ground between masculinity and femininity. One search for ‘tomboy’ on Pinterest pulls up pages of images of women who look like models. It’s true that celebrating one specific type of body is not exclusive to women dressing in traditionally ‘masculine’ clothes, but it is an issue that irks me significantly.
One issue with walking the line between masculinity and femininity is dressing for a formal setting. I learnt this lesson the hard way by forcing myself to wear a dress for my stupid high school ball. So, when I saw ‘business casual’ as the dress code for my office job, I nearly shat my oversized ASOS pants. All of the outfits that come up when you search ‘business casual’ on Google are straight-up feminine. The outfits that are celebrated as being ‘tomboy’ or ‘androgynous’ still conform to femininity. These images will show conventionally attractive white women in pantsuits and blazers, that are cut to still show off the traditionally feminine parts of a woman's body. These outfits are paraded as viable options for those of us who despise dressing feminine, when in actual fact contribute to the same feelings of discomfort that wearing a dress and heels would. The fact is, there is little room in formal environments for masculine presenting women to dress in an outfit they feel good in, and still be taken seriously.
The other relevant thing to bring up is the topic of makeup. I never showed an interest in makeup, I always thought it was my desperate need for perfection, knowing I was terrible at painting and thought that incompetence would translate to the application of foundation. In hindsight though, it’s more to do with me having no interest in expressing femininity. The expectation for women to wear makeup in the workplace in the first place is outdated and misogynistic. I have friends who work in retail, and part of their contracts is to ensure they are presentable. As part of this, they are strongly encouraged to wear ‘natural-looking makeup’. If you want to dress in a more masculine style, there is an expectation that you’ll still conform to some traditional beauty standards to be taken seriously. In other words: you can’t have it all. If you want to wear the same thing your male colleagues are wearing then you feel the need to compromise by wearing makeup, or finding an outfit that has touches of femininity.
In 2015, when Orange is the New Black announced the casting of Ruby Rose in its third season, gay women and straight girls went crazy for her, and I’ll admit I was one of them. She was held up as an icon for androgyny, an example of a tomboy that everyone was attracted to. The problem was that she was held up as an icon of tomboy fashion because of how well she fit into the ‘ideal’ body type. As much as Ruby Rose is attractive and talented, she was also not the ground-breaking style icon she was held up to be. The reason she was allowed to explode on the internet was that she presented in a masculine way that was digestible and made sense to people. The reality is that a lot of the time, women who want to dress masculine will have a harder time finding clothes that suit their body type. For those of us who steer clear of feminine clothing, finding clothes that look like ‘men's’ clothes but fit a ‘women’s body’ often proves an impossible task. It’s not as simple as buying a pair of oversized jeans at an op-shop, or ordering a pair of Dickies online, because those motherfuckers are not going to fit over an ass.
We should all be able to wear clothes that make us feel confident, in a formal or casual setting. I have no idea what the solution to this problem is, but if you find one, please let me know. In the meantime, don’t compare your ability to walk the gender fluidity line with those who can just slip on a pair of Hallensteins’ pants and call it a day, and if you are one of those people; I envy you deeply.
