words, fragments, goobers

Breaking the Gender Norm

“Hey, man,” I nodded at a girl I knew and continued walking. She said nothing, her mouth agape for a moment. I was almost out of ear shot when she finally yelled back, “Erin? Why are you dressed so weird?”

I chuckled to myself, hiked up my basketball shorts to prevent them from collapsing around my ankles, and adjusted my Yankees hat. A few girls that passed had to do a double take. I gave the obligatory head-nod to anyone I made eye contact with.

“Later, Alexis,” I said in a gruff voice to my roommate, and as I walked into class, no one looked at me. Sitting next to a girl named Hannah, I tossed my notebook on the seat next to me and spread my legs apart. I slouched, adjusted my hat again and started playing around on my phone.

“Uhm… Erin?”

I looked up. Hannah was staring at me like she didn’t know me. I smiled and said, “Hey Hannah. What’s up? Say uh, so did you do the homework last night? Man, I don’t know if I did the right one.”

She stared at me, then said, “Ah, well, yeah. But, Erin, please tell me why you’re dressed like that…” She laughed nervously.

I looked down at what I was wearing: an old, baggy, black Led Zeppelin t-shirt, basketball shorts that were twice my size, white socks that went up to the middle of my calves, Vans shoes, and a Yankees baseball hat that hid my long hair. Not to mention I wasn’t wearing make-up and I hadn’t shaved my legs for well over two weeks.

If you didn’t catch on, I’m a boy.

Naturally, I laughed at her reaction. It wasn’t what I expected, to be honest. Most people reacted in negative ways. A guy in my English class even began to critique how I was acting and what I said. He started explaining how wrong I was and asking what specific stereotype of a man I was trying to reenact.

“Guys don’t sit like that.”
“What guy do you know talks like that?!”
“So, do you really like Led Zeppelin? If you don’t, then why are you wearing that shirt?”
“What are you, a bro?”
At the end of class he even ventured to say, “I don’t like the boy-Erin.”

The point of the experiment was to break a societal norm. At my school, girls don’t dress or act like boys. Ever. It was interesting to see that most people were put off and even nervous around me. The boy in my English class was probably the most uncomfortable of them all.

Probably would never do this again.