Female Dopers: Did someone teach you "girly" stuff?

In My Humble Opinion
61

[QUOTE=Zsofia]
Yeah, and then I bet you smelled like Spring Rain Baby Powder Cashmere Orgy for a week, which isn’t really better, you know? And I’m sure you also had no practice with the “put this shirt on without getting deodorant all over it” dance, which takes serious practice.

Personally, I must have just been one of those rare people who have never been colonized with the “smelly armpit” bacteria. Until one day in college. I remember it well. A warm October day. Seriously, it was just like that - sniff, sniff, what the HELL? Before that I just wore antiperspirant to guard against wetness, and not all the time.
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Practice? What is this practice you speak of? I just put the deodorant on and then the shirt. I wear a lot of sleeveless stuff, though, so that’s good. Also, when it’s not really that hot out and I’ve just depilated, I usually find there’s not a lot of need for deodorant. But I do shower super regularly.

62

[QUOTE=Zsofia]
Spring Rain Baby Powder Cashmere Orgy
[/quote]

Coincidentally, this is the name of my new band. We’re looking for a bassist.

Yes, I did overdo it, at first. Yikes. I think I have it all down now, since the only time anyone comments on my odor is related to a particular perfume that I think smells obnoxiously strong on me, but that my husband and one of the aforementioned Southern girls just don’t seem to be able to get enough of. I guess that’s an improvement!

Oh… on the boobage front (no pun intended) my mother didn’t have those, particularly, either… so I was crammed into an underwireless b cup for the longest time until I went to get fitted and found out I was a d cup instead. Oops.

63

My situation was kind of a combination of normal and strange (on Mom’s and my part both).

Mom was a nurse before I was born, so she taught me the basics about menstruation and whatnot in a very no-nonsense way–I was grateful for that since I really didn’t want any part of it and wanted to get it over with as easily and quickly as possible. However, she kind of had this arrested-development thing going on regarding things like clothes and hairstyles–I was a 70s kid, and she was thorougly mired in the 50s and 60s. She made me wear saddle shoes until about fourth grade (at which point I rebelled) and Buffy-style (not the cool Buffy–the one from “Family Affair”) pigtails until a little earlier (I rebelled earlier on that one–I hated those damned things).

The worst part of the whole thing was that I was (and am, to this day) a raving tomboy. Basically I was a geeky boy in a girl’s body–I liked to wear jeans, wallabees, tennis shoes, T-shirts…and she wanted me to wear dresses and skirts. This got overruled in a hurry by me, because even as little kid I felt weird wearing girly clothes. Eventually she relented and let me dress the way I wanted to, but I think she was always worried that I was gay (I’m not–sometimes I think a lot of things would have been easier if I had been!).

But anyway, it’s probably good that I had no interest in things like makeup and dating, because I had no other female role models (only child, no close female relatives other than Mom) and I probably would have ended up as an outcast after absorbing Mom’s bizarre 50’s-style “tips” on such things. She tried to encourage me to wear some makeup when I was a teen, but I said no, thanks and eventually she just gave up and let me (in her words) “look like a stevedore.” :slight_smile:

64

[QUOTE=Freudian Slit]
Practice? What is this practice you speak of? I just put the deodorant on and then the shirt. I wear a lot of sleeveless stuff, though, so that’s good. Also, when it’s not really that hot out and I’ve just depilated, I usually find there’s not a lot of need for deodorant. But I do shower super regularly.
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You don’t get that “goddamn it” streak of white down your side sometimes putting your shirt on?

65

[QUOTE=Zsofia]
You don’t get that “goddamn it” streak of white down your side sometimes putting your shirt on?
[/QUOTE]

No, I don’t think so. Granted, I don’t wear deodorant all that often, but when I do, I’ve never gotten it on my clothes. Just lucky, I guess.

66

I didn’t have very many girly women in my family–my mother was purposefully not girly and generally disparaged girly things. She wore mens’ clothes and actively loathed womens’ magazines and concepts like fashion. The person who taught me the most about exploring my own femininity was, incidentally, a gay male family friend. He always did my hair and makeup for special occasions, from the Jr. high dance to high school prom to my wedding day. For a long time I just let him lead me along without actively establishing any girly habits. I did not feel feminine at all… I had to be close to 18 when he described me as ‘‘one of the most feminine women I know’’ which really surprised me and motivated me to do more girly things. I took the initiative from that point, seeking out fashionable clothing and experimenting with hair and makeup. I developed an affinity for the colors pink and purple. I had a lot of fun with it. My Aunt always assisted him and gave me hair and makeup tips so to an extent she influenced me there as well. I just think it’s kind of funny that the person who taught me the most about womanly things was a dude.

67

How I wish someone had!

There is photographic evidence that my mother at one time knew at least some of that stuff. However, after she and our dad split up she kinda gave up in that area (and many others, as well). My sister and I both have sensitive skin, and difficult to manage hair, but both have different sorts of each. She let me read her Seventeen magazines after she did, but besides the hair and makeup limitations we’re both overweight so the style tips didn’t really work for us, either.

We talk now and then about how there are some women who apply makeup and “do” their hair and continue to look good throughout the day. They also accessorize effortlessly. We think there might be a corresponding gene that we simply did not get.

If there was a class I could take I would.

My mom did teach me to push my cuticles back with a towel after my shower and not to cut them. And she did encourage hygiene, but not with any kind of girly slant.

68

My mother doesn’t wear makeup- magazines, friends and the nice ladies at the Clinique counter helped. I bought my own razors and told mum which brand of pads, and then tampons to buy.

Mum had her first facial last year and uses one of my dad’s disposable single blade Bics. Girly doesn’t describe her well, if anything my sisters and I have taught her stuff.

She is, however a doctor- sex, contraception, periods etc, I knew all that stuff from an early age.

69

My mom died when I was 15, but I learned some stuff from her. The rest I learned from those books published by “Seventeen” and the like about grooming/hair/makeup. I also had a subscription to “Teen” magazine in the mid 70s.

It all stuck - I’m very girly to this day.

VCNJ~

70

[QUOTE=olivesmarch4th]
I took the initiative from that point, seeking out fashionable clothing and experimenting with hair and makeup. I developed an affinity for the colors pink and purple. I had a lot of fun with it.
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I just realized this post made me sound like I’m actually fashionable or hip or anything like that. Heavens no – I wouldn’t feel right spreading such misinformation about myself. It’s just that before my friend’s influence I was a fashion nightmare. Now I wear reasonably priced, decently fitting clothing, I can do my own makeup, and can arrange my hair in four basic styles. Basically I am capable of making myself look presentable.

I don’t wear hairspray, I don’t use a blowdryer, no liner, no tweezing, nothing like that. I am extraordinarily low maintenance, can get a shower and be ready to walk out the door in 15 minutes flat. But because of my friend I am not a total frump. That’s all I’m trying to say.

71

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
I think that type of celebratory menarche type stuff arose in retaliation for the school of thought that made any “female function” irksome, gruesome and shameful. There are cultures where a woman is considered “unclean” when menstruating etc.

I don’t agree with the hype re celebrating periods, but I can sympathize with the impulse to make it a Good Thing, not a PITA or similar.
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Yeah, but doesn’t it ignore the fact that periods are a gruesome PITA?

Tangential: I’ve noticed, in my dramatically limited observations of the issue, a sort of mini-generation gap on the issue of intentionally skipping periods via birth control. I think that younger women are at least okay with it, if not all for it, because we’ve reached a point as a society where not only is it okay to openly say that yes, periods are a pain to deal with, but also to go as far as to do something about it. It’s finally acceptable (well, to most people at least) for a woman to take control of her body, rather than being a slave to it.

I find that, on the other hand, my mother’s generation - again, in her particular case, the all-talk-no-action, march-on-Washington, bra-burning generation of feminists - it’s maybe okay to not be thrilled with your monthly period, but it’s still weirdly revered. Messing with it is somehow “giving in” to some sort of oppressive force, and that in and of itself is shameful.

Or I could just be totally talking out of my ass, as lately I’m on a kick of realizing that the world is an absolute mess and it’s very much the fault of my parent’s generation. So there. :stuck_out_tongue:

72

I’m younger, and I can’t help thinking that maybe getting rid of periods might be a bad thing down the road–you never know what could happen. I don’t want to accidentally get cancer or something.

73

On the other hand, women prior to These Modern Times had far fewer periods in their lifetimes, because they had more pregnancies, more time spent breastfeeding, and achieved menarche later.

74

[QUOTE=Zsofia]
On the other hand, women prior to These Modern Times had far fewer periods in their lifetimes, because they had more pregnancies, more time spent breastfeeding, and achieved menarche later.
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Yeah, but their lives pretty much sucked, right?

75

[QUOTE=NinjaChick]
Yeah, but doesn’t it ignore the fact that periods are a gruesome PITA?

Tangential: I’ve noticed, in my dramatically limited observations of the issue, a sort of mini-generation gap on the issue of intentionally skipping periods via birth control. I think that younger women are at least okay with it, if not all for it, because we’ve reached a point as a society where not only is it okay to openly say that yes, periods are a pain to deal with, but also to go as far as to do something about it. It’s finally acceptable (well, to most people at least) for a woman to take control of her body, rather than being a slave to it.

I find that, on the other hand, my mother’s generation - again, in her particular case, the all-talk-no-action, march-on-Washington, bra-burning generation of feminists - it’s maybe okay to not be thrilled with your monthly period, but it’s still weirdly revered. Messing with it is somehow “giving in” to some sort of oppressive force, and that in and of itself is shameful.

Or I could just be totally talking out of my ass, as lately I’m on a kick of realizing that the world is an absolute mess and it’s very much the fault of my parent’s generation. So there. :stuck_out_tongue:
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I think, among educated people anyway, the period-skipping divide is actually the result of a schism in the medical community and the rethinking of what “natural” means.

For years, it was thought that skipping periods was unnatural, and therefore unhealthy. If you didn’t release the endometrium once a week as God and Nature intended, who knows what might happen?

Then someone thought about it a little more and went, “Wait a minute. Women ‘in nature’ hardly menstruate at all! ‘Natural’ women, without access to contraception, are either knocked up or nursing on demand, and in both of those states, they’re not menstruating!” Some research with third world tribal living women revealed that most of them had fewer than 50 periods in a lifetime, between their pregnancies, nursing on demand and simple sub-par nutrition. They also have far lower incidences of uterine and endometrial cancer, as do multiparous women in developed countries, partly because they spend so much time not menstruating.

So people using the old definition of “natural” (which tend to be older women and doctors) think skipping periods is unnatural and unhealthy. People using the new definition of “natural” think that having all those periods is unnatural and unhealthy.

ETA: Dagnabbit. Too many words = beaten to the punch. Ah well.

76

Yeah, but just because something is “natural,” does that mean it’s good?

77

It’s good if it produces less of certain cancers (although of course being on the pill does IIRC increase the incidence of other cancer types.)

78

[QUOTE=Zsofia]
It’s good if it produces less of certain cancers (although of course being on the pill does IIRC increase the incidence of other cancer types.)
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How do we know the cancers are being caused by having more periods, though?

79

[QUOTE=Freudian Slit]
How do we know the cancers are being caused by having more periods, though?
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Because when we statistically control for other factors, like race, income, diet and age, the only difference left is number of periods. (Or, of course, something else we currently think is insignificant. Science is always changing its mind as new information comes to light.)

One theory to explain it is that whenever you have cell division, you have DNA duplication. The entire set of DNA is copied, and one copy goes to each new cell. And every time you make a copy of something, you run the risk of getting something wrong, of having a mutation. Having a period means lots of cell division on the endometrium - first to build it up, then to detach and slough off all those cells, and then to build them up again. And each time a cell divides, you’re increasing the chances that there will be a mutation. And one of the consequences of some mutations is having a cancerous cell result.

No periods and a smaller endometrium means fewer cell divisions, fewer opportunities for mutations, fewer cancerous cells. Maybe. This is all, as far as I know, still well within the realm of speculation. Research is being done to see if we can substantiate that theory, but these things take time.