Foraging the Intrepid Self: Part 2 - Building Blocks

I was brought up in the practice of being a "woman." My father liked to buy me pearls and white lace dresses. He was concerned that i would run to the first man who'd buy me nice things, so he bought me nice things first. My mother, however, was neither for against any of it. She didn't instruct me to do anything a particular way. She just wanted me to get A's and be safe. I wasn't allowed to wear red nail polish or shave, though.

I remember using her razors to shave my arms in middle school because this girl said I was hairy. Then I shaved my arms and she made fun of me for shaving them. She then proceeded to tell everyone in the class about it on our way to gym class. That's when I realized how pointless all that shit was.

"All that shit" as in, hetero-patriarchal gender norms. Translation: straight, male-driven standards for how people should act according to a male/female binary (the either/or, black and white mentality). I loved pink and dangly earrings, and bangles, but I loved kickball and I'd beat most of the boys at arm-wrestling. I loved the fact that I confused people even more. Confused them with my style, my behavior, my skin, my hair, my speech, my family, my interests.

My dad also taught me how to stand my ground. He said, if someone starts a fight, "you finish it." I liked that a lot. I liked knowing that I had the free range to knock the shit out of someone if I had to. Maybe I gave off that aura because it seemed as if no one could really follow through.

"Chey's Nocturn," digital painting by Cheyenne Tobias, August 2019.

I remember this kid slapped the shit out of me in the cafeteria. He came up behind me and slapped the right side of my face from behind. I turned around and asked if he was satisfied. He looked as though he expected me to get up and fight him. I raised my eyebrows and proceeded to eat my lunch with him breathing on my head behind me. I couldn't hear anything out of that ear for like 10 minutes. I'm not really the type to be fighting, even when provoked. Maybe that is radical femininity? I'm not sure.

I had a whole post I'd written out for the second installment of this little series, but it didn't excite me when I read it back. I call this "Foraging the Intrepid Self" because I imagine myself going through the jungle that is my mind and spirit, chopping down trees and plucking the ripest thoughts and feelings, so that I may come out with the best ingredient for a fearless and bold Cheyenne.

I was once a girl who sought to be everything that she was not. Softer, frillier, quieter. I am none of these things. I am not soft. I am not frilly. Surely, I am not quiet, even though I enjoy listening. Do you see how this causes some cognitive dissonance?

Poem artwork by Cheyenne Tobias, 2019.

I wrote a poem a few months ago that centered the line, "you will not find me in a butter yellow dress." This was a moment in which I found myself mercilessly relinquished of my attachment to radical femininity. I don't know if that's the official term, but that's what it is in my mind. Radical Femininity suggests that femininity is a form of strength, in its ability to absorb and heal pain through care. It redefines strength as softer, flowing energy that changes and moves rather than rigid, resistive and stagnant energy. In theory, I agree with a lot of this sentiment. Compassion can really light up the kind of person that feeds off of hatred and jealousy.

It can also be the whole "pussy power," "fuck men" sort of thing, which honestly makes me feel weird. It just reinforces the binary. A lot of feminism actually does that. I stopped calling myself a feminist for this reason. We can raise the bar a lot higher than just "equality." Let's just do away with the whole gender thing. I mean, it's kind of bland, don't you think? I know we have this need to compartmentalize people so that we feel like we understand them, so we aren't afraid. But I really wish we'd do better.

Love,
Chey