I'm a 17-year old girl, and a lot of my friends are guys, which makes life pretty interesting to me. When I was younger, I liked to think of myself as a tomboy because of the things I liked to do. While a lot of the little girls were playing inside with dolls and telling stories and playing house, I was outside playing football, running races, and playing soccer. I looked up to my older cousins, who were both boys, and I just enjoyed "tomboyish" hobbies. However, I also loved to write and read and chit chat with girlfriends as I grew older. Even now, although I spend most of my time with my guy friends, I also love a good chat with my best girlfriend, a wonderful, sweet girl who I met last year.
From the title of this article, you're probably guessing this is going to examine the between boys and girls. You couldn't be more wrong, although I admit, that thought did not fail to pass my mind. This article is going to examine something more serious.
Today, we live in a society where the identity of a person is in question. If a girl enjoys hobbies that usually a guy prefers, our society puts a label on them and says they identify more as a guy and encourages girls to do so. If a little boy prefers to play with dolls for whatever odd reason, society encourages them to identify more with the female sex. In doing so, our culture confuses their minds and tells them something is right that isn't right, such as cross-dressing or claiming to be "trans-gender." The fact is, we are created to be unique persons. Each of us is different, and we ought to embrace each child with their different likes and dislikes, while encouraging children to be who they are created to be and to take confidence in that.
We live in a culture where insecurity is rampant because girls and boys are told they have to act, dress, and talk a certain way. Girls are taught we need to dress a certain way to attract attention, we need to wear makeup a certain way to be like other girls, we need to talk a certain way in order to fit in. Girls want to act like boys so boys like them, so they learn to curse and smoke and drink like boys. They are also taught that they need to be more like men and go outside the home and work just as much as boys, and girls are encouraged to prove they are just as valuable as boys.
Society teaches boys that they have to super macho. Their nature is to want to impress girls and outdo other guys, and culture encouraged that. On the other hand, there is the rebellion that culture began encouraging, and they began encouraging boys to act, dress, and speak in more of a feminine manner. Society encourages guys to dress a certain way in order to attract girls or to fit in with other people.
Now, I'm not generalizing. I know not all girls are like this. Not all girls think they have to be a certain way. Not all boys feel bogged down by the demands of society. Not all boys believe they have to be macho or feminine. However, we live in a country today that encourages young teens and children to be someone that they aren't. Children and teens are encouraged to try to measure up to something they aren't.
Women are meant to stay home and be taken care of by men. Men are to protect women, to love them, care for them, and fondle them. That's how we were made. That's our nature. Women are designed to make the man's home a place of rest and comfort, where the husband or brother or father can come home to their wife, sister, or daughter, and look forward to an evening where they are comfortable an relaxed. That is our nature. That is our design.
Now I am not against women working or men staying home. However, in a society that teaches us to rebel against the unique individuals we are and therefore creates confusion and insecurity, we need to step back and take a moment to contemplate our lives. Society tells boys and men that it's perfectly okay and wonderful to feel an attraction to the other men, and girls are told we don't have to fall in love with boys--it's okay to fall in love with girls, too. Society tells us encourages us to experiment, to dress like men when we feel like it and for men to dress like women when they feel like it, even though that rebels against our nature.
This creates massive insecurity and confusion because people don't learn to take confidence in who they were made to be. They were made to live the way they were designed to live, to take pride and confidence in who we are as women and girls, and for men, to live the way they were designed to life, to take pride and confidence in who they are as boys and women. True feminism is to be confident in who we are as the beautiful humans we are. True manhood is when men are confident in who they are as men and who they are made to be, and that's to be the lovers, to be the protectors, to be the leaders in the world.
Truly, humans are beautiful creatures created to be the caretakers of the world, to tend the earth we are given to tend. Why is it we have to confuse our minds and tell ourselves we are something we aren't? And for those who struggle with things that rebel against our nature, we need to help those people and to show them love and grace and understanding. However, that's drastically different than conforming to society because celebrities and leaders in culture tell us that's the way to go.
As a little girl, I loved to participate in hobbies and sports that most boys would prefer. That doesn't mean I identified as a boy or identified more with boys. Even now, many times I prefer to hangout with my guy friends more than my girlfriends, just because it seems that with girls, there can be too much drama sometimes, but that doesn't mean boys don't have drama either. That doesn't mean I identify with boys or as a boy. I identify as the person I'm created to be. My identity rests in my Creator. My identity rests in who I am as a person, and I am confident in the person I am created to be.
