My Life as a Girl

When I was born some 74 years ago, my whole family sobbed, not with joy, but with disappointment because I was the wrong gender. My sister Lelia who preceded me on the planet 16 months earlier also evoked family disappointment, but as she was the first, the assumption was that the second child would definitely be a boy. My entrance was perceived as a moral failure for my mother and a monumental disappointment for my father. On the bright side, however, I bounced into the world over nine pounds with a full head of black curls and was welcomed eventually by everyone shortly after they swallowed their disappointment and bravely assumed that Lelia would welcome a little sister (That also proved to be a bummer; she thought I was there to usurp her elevated place in the world and promptly slapped me as I lay helpless in the cradle; nor did she ever regret it. In recent discussions when I tried to make her feel guilty, she insisted it was the right thing to do.) Fortunately, my little brother Marvin joined the family four and a half years later, and the great hurrahs and congratulations made it clear that his arrival cancelled out Lelia's and my intrusive entrance into the world.

Did this make me a rabid feminist years later? Certainly not. Did it ever make me wish I had been a boy instead? Not in the least. Just the opposite. Even when I was old enough to reason, and that happened at age two or three, I was wildly happy to be a girl, and that has never changed. The thought of being a boy gives me the shudders and I thank my lucky stars that fate gave me the right chromosomes or whatever it is that determines gender. My mother always regretted her initial reactions to the births of Lelia and me. She told me innumerable times that girls were a blessing, even though it was obvious right to the end of her days, that she considered my brother her most triumphant production. I don't think it was gender prejudice. I think she just found him more appealing...though why, I cannot imagine. Girls are so much more interesting than boys, women so much more fascinating than men, generally speaking that is. Naturally, there are millions of exceptions, but it's the exception that proves the rule.

Anyway, if my father was disappointed, he didn't show it. As we grew up, he seemed very appreciative of us, even though, like my mother, it was clear my brother was his favorite as well. But did that bother me? Certainly not. There's no accounting for tastes, and if my parents thought boys were a greater joy than girls, I have no problem with it.

Years later when I taught junior high school English for four years, I found the 12 and 13 year old girls far more interesting than the boys, even though there were some major exceptions. By the time I got to high school, however, I found the boys far more interesting. I guess that's normal. And in college, the boys far outranked the girls, in my estimation and my interests.

Years later when I became a social worker and supervised hundreds of delinquent girls and boys, at first I really loved working with the girls, and thought that I would hate have having to put up with delinquent boys. But after ten years, when the system changed, the girls reform schools mostly closed, and I changed positions and worked with delinquent boys, I immediately found them far superior to the girls. Boys are obviously slow bloomers. Girls, as a group, for some reason, lag behind as they mature. It's probably nature's way of preparing them for a dismal life of procreation, playing second fiddle to their physically stronger brothers and husbands, and resigning themselves to being "children of a lesser God."

But as for me, I have never considered being female anything but the best possible choice. To begin with, from the time I was four years old and my aunt Sue brought Lelia and me two little dark brown hammered satin dresses, I immediately began a lifelong love affair with clothes. I can still see those brown dresses and happily recall the day Lelia brought me to her first grade class one day to show me that the next year, when I turned five, I, too, would be in the first grade at East Nassau School. I wore my little brown dress, and as I sat at a long table with Lelia and other first graders, I noticed a little boy named Bobby who sat opposite me staring at me. Every time I looked away and then looked back, he was still staring. The wheels in my head kept turning, until finally I realized what was happening. I looked him dead in the eye and said, "I know why you're staring at me. Because you like my new dress." Little Bobby's face turned beet red and he turned away. I had embarrassed him...but that wasn't the worst part. As soon as we got home, I ran to my mother and told her exactly what happened. Her reaction stunned me. She laughed hysterically, repeated it to my father, and from then, whoever came to visit, had to hear her tell the story and repeat my comment, "I know why you're looking at me....because you like my new dress." Gales of laughter always greeted the punch line, but. I never laughed at it. I knew that from then on, my beloved mother could not be trusted with my clever little sayings, although, as it turned out, I never had many clever little sayings. That might have been the only memorable one I ever made during childhood, whereas my mother often recalled amusing or clever comments from Marvin and Lelia. But girls weren't expected to be clever, I suppose. Merely compliant and sweet. I think I was compliant for a long time, but sweet doesn't describe me in those days. I was cautious, fearful for my safety, and uneasy about the impression I made on others. After all, I was greeted at birth with disappointed sobs, smacked in the face in my cradle by my own sister, and teased and humiliated by my mother after I confided my social gaffe at age 4. I just assumed more of the same might be coming, and I tried to be sort of invisible by obeying my parents and not assuming anything about other people, like little Bobby who liked my new dress.

PART 2

I've never understood why some girls brag about having been "tomboys," when they were young. I suppose they thought that things little girls did or were supposed to do were boring or insulting, like learning to cook and clean, and play with dolls. Perhaps they just thought that climbing trees and playing with toy cars was more enthralling. I never saw it that way. Unfortunately, my parents never provided us with dolls, partly because we had little money, and besides, they thought that we were happy just playing games and running around outside in the rural area where we lived. I was very sad about this, particularly in grade school when a couple of our (female, of course) teachers, occasionally decided to have a doll contest. I had nothing to bring, and was not only embarrassed but deeply envious of the beautiful little golden- haired dolls some of the girls owned. I don't recall what the boys did during the doll contests. I suppose I blocked it out. To this day, I think about buying a really beautiful doll and placing her on my bed as an ornament and a testament to my motherly instincts. However, in my later years, I became addicted to dogs, and instead of dolls, I have a huge black lab toy dog sitting in my room, and some other stuffed animal toys around the house, to remind me of my love for all animals except for insects, especially spiders. Real girls hate spiders, and if that's the test, my femininity is beyond question.

From the first grade on, I developed mad crushes on boys. In the first grade, I thought I loved John, a little boy in the second grade. In East Nassau School, first and second grades were in the same room, and so I had a year of happily watching John, wishing he would notice me. During chorus, he would creep up slowly and hold hands with a second grade girl named Elsie, making me very sad and jealous, but one happy day, he stopped before he reached Elsie, and held my hand throughout the singing. I never forgot it. Unfortunately, he never did it again. Years later when I saw him, in our early teens, I realized he was still very short, but I still thought he was cute.

From the second grade through the fourth grade, I must have been in the latency period of life because I had no further interest in boys, but that changed in the fifth grade when a sixth grade hall monitor caught my amorous eye. As I was only years nine years old and had no idea how to be seductive, I kept my romantic thoughts secret. By the end of the sixth grade, however, I fell in love with "an older man," who was actually only a freshman and attended the big central school, while I was in the last year of the elementary school. I saw him when he stopped by occasionally to see his girlfriend, Rose Marie, who was in my class. I was jealous , but I could understand his attraction to her, as she was pretty and very friendly to everyone. She also had two older brothers who attended the central high school, Tom and Don, and both were very good-looking, but not as handsome as Philip, Rose Marie's boyfriend. I learned that he lived with his brothers and family on top of Bunker Hill past Nassau, and as addresses were very simple in those days, I decided to write him a note, revealing my devotion. First I drew a sketch of a rooster and colored it with crayons. Then I wrote a perky little note on it, saying: Wake up, Philip! Someone is after you." I stupidly signed my name, Sylvia, and sent it off. A few days later, Rose Marie came running up to me in school with a puzzled look on her face and said, "Sylvia, did you write...." and before she could finish her sentence, I said, "Well, there must be more than one Sylvia in the world," and I jumped on the school bus and escaped. She never questioned me again. The next year when we attended the central school, I used to see Philip in the cafeteria at lunch time, and one day I got behind him in line and started asking him to get me a tray, and some utensils, and he turned to me and said, "Who was your slave last year?' I laughed and felt I had made an impression. But as I was only eleven years old, and Philip, who was about 14 or 15, was still going with Rose Marie, as far as I knew. Eventually, I developed crushes on boys in my class and forgot about Philip, and then I heard his family moved away to Stephentown and I never saw him again. But I never forgot how good-looking he was.

All through high school, I had crushes on the really good looking, popular boys in the class, but if they had any interest in me, they didn't show it, until I was in my senior year, and now 16 years old, going on 21. The handsomest boy in class, Arnie, who was later a dead ringer for the movie star, Sean Connery, suddenly paid attention to me in homeroom. He asked me to help him with his homework, as I was known as "a brain," and he was not much of a scholar. Happily I took a seat near him, close as possible, and tried to explain the lesson , but he was having more fun teasing me, all the while chewing a big wad of gum. After awhile, I went back across the room to my seat and seconds after I sat down, I felt something land in my long black hair. I felt around and came up with the big wad of gum Arnie had been chewing. I pulled it out and called across to him, saying he threw the gum in my hair. He just laughed and denied it, I threw away gum, and was delighted that he showed an interest, even if it was in a very immature manner. Years later, when Arnie bought a summer home near my family, we became good friends.

Despite clumsy beginnings, when I began dating at the tender age of 15, romantic pursuits became my main focus, and I was not alone. All my classmates and girlfriends seemed similarly preoccupied. I suppose it's what my mother called "the biological urge," and she was quite right. Now in those olden days, in the late 40's and early 50's, it may have seemed to some as if boys had the advantage in the courtship arena, but in mind, it was far easier and more fun being a girl. True, it was up to the boys to pursue the girls, openly at least, whereas girls had to wait to be asked out, but that was the best part of the fun for me. Girls, it appeared, had to learn to be alluring, how to attract boys and sink our hooks into them. Much of the techniques I used and assumed I had invented were, of course, instinctual. Body language was the key, "taking them with your eyelids," I think was a biblical suggestion. Flirting begins with the eyes, I learned, and I worked on it. Clothes was another key to success, and as I had good taste in clothes and my mother was generous, buying Lelia and me expensive clothes, I was on my way. Cosmetics, another lifelong love of mine, played a part as well. "Doe eyes," had just come into fashion, and during my last two high school years, the black eyebrow pencil was my ally, as I subtly drew on doe eyes. I don't recall any other girls in school wearing it. In my yearbook, one boy mentioned my doe eyes.

Lipstick was the main cosmetic lure, and it had special meaning for me because Lelia and I had such a hard time with it. My father, always a prude and watchful for any signs that his daughters were heading in the wrong direction sexually, had early on forbidden us to ever think of wearing lipstick, which he apparently considered a major part of the Devil's workshop. His frequent warnings were always, "If I catch you wearing lipstick, I'll break every bone in your body." That was scary. We also were well aware of the family story about Daddy and his older sister Helen, who got married young to Max and moved away to New York City. Daddy visited her one day and noticed she was wearing the dreaded lipstick. Without warning, he went through her draws, found her lipsticks, and threw them all away, after warning her never to try wearing lipstick again. Her docile husband, apparently afraid of his domineering young brother-in-law, never said a word, and his sister never wore lipstick again.

Lelia and I had a tough task ahead of us, but resourceful Lelia, quickly solved our problem. On her 13th birthday on March 13th (Thereafter she liked the dreaded number 13 and even got married on a May 13 years later), as we were getting ready for school, she called out to Daddy, who was still in bed. "Daddy, today is my 13th birthday." There was an uneasy silence and then Daddy growled back, "So what?" Lelia said, "Don't you remember? You promised me that when I turned 13, I could start wearing lipstick." This was a patent lie, but truth was not the issue here. Our future happiness was the issue, and Lelia took the bull by the horns. She knew how to instill guilt in my father because ,an unsentimental, practical Virgo, Daddy never celebrated birthdays, never sent us a card or gave us gifts. There was another disquieting silence and then Daddy growled back, "I never said no such thing." "Yes you did," Lelia insisted, knowing that her birthday and his guilt gave her the advantage. Finally, Daddy answered, saying, "O.K., but only very lightly." With great joy, Lelia pulled out her Tangee lipstick and the two of us, applied it and rushed off to school. I was still eleven years old. From then on, every morning after we got on the school bus, we put on lipstick, and every afternoon just before the bus dropped us off, we violently wiped off all traces of it, for even though Lelia had permission, I didn't, and we didn't want my father to see how we were abusing the privilege. I favored bright red lipstick, and he would have gone ballistic if he ever saw my bright red mouth. The other kids, knowing our predicament, would watch us and let us know when we succeeded in wiping it all off. My mother knew about it, but she had no problem with it or with our deceptions. It amused her.

As we reached our late teens and near high school graduation, lipstick was still a sore point with my father. Every once in awhile, when we were preparing to go square-dancing, the highlight of our young lives, Daddy who had to drive us there, would suddenly focus on the lipstick. Although Lelia wore it lightly because her skin was so fair, somehow Daddy saw it as a blinking neon sign. He would occasionally scream at her, "Take off that red lipstick," and while I stood by with a blazing red mouth, he didn't seem to notice it on me. So while Lelia had to scrub off her light Tangee, I was off to the dances with my bright gleaming red mouth, and a happy victorious grin. Once Daddy left us at the dance, of course, Lelia put back the Tangee. It was fun fooling Daddy.


PART 3

When I started college in September, 1950, shortly after I turned 17, the conventional wisdom still favored boys, but at the time, the ratio of boys to girls at NYU was three-and -a -half to one, and that gave girls the advantage. At the same time, the sexual revolution had not begun, and girls who slept around were considered sluts, whereas the boys who did the same were admired as attractive studs. Abortions were crimes in those days, shotgun weddings were embarrassments, and illegitimate children were considered a permanent scar on the reputations of the unfortunate mothers and their innocent children. Drug usage was unheard of and cigarette smoking was perfectly acceptable, in those days. Alcohol, however, was frowned upon. (Today, it's just the opposite. Who knew?)

My father's stern and scary warnings kept me safe, however. Besides, I bought into the theory that female promiscuity was shameful and perilous. My closest girlfriend, who was my age and grew up in next door, was born forty years too soon. Nowadays her behavior would be considered perfectly normal. When we were still in high school, Joy, as I'll call her (and,indeed,she spread the joy around), was already sleeping her way through many transient affairs, many with older married men). For some reason, despite her bright intelligence, she always got caught and received occasional beatings from a furious older brother, who took on the parental role after their father deserted when Joy was still a baby. But that didn't stop her. I think it added to the excitement for her. But although her risky antics interested and amused me, it also scared me straight. I knew that my father would never have beaten me, no matter what I did, but I was certain it would have killed him, and if not, he would have made me so guilty and miserable that it wasn't worth it.

In my high school years, three girls got pregnant, and two of them had shotgun weddings. The third, a tall, beautiful, intelligent blonde, was not so lucky...or perhaps she was. The father refused to marry her or even acknowledge his parenthood. All three had to drop out of school, although I believe all received home tutoring and graduated. But their reputations were tarnished, and I pitied them. All three were beautiful girls from decent families, but it made no difference in the public courts of opinion.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed my college days and years immensely, despite the specter of personal shame and ruination hanging over all us girls at the time, and particularly the fear of my father's wrath, should I cave in and bring shame upon the family. Just getting dates and falling in love was pleasure enough for me. Learning how to play the dating game was a full time preoccupation, not just for me. In the girls dorm at NYU, where we out-of-town students lived, I can't recall ever discussing classes or school subjects. All we thought and talked about was dating, romance, and boys. It's amazing that most of us eventually graduated and even went on to graduate school. Rules were strict, and we had a midnight curfew, and a one PM curfew on Saturday nights. If you violated curfew, you were campus-ed, meaning you had a nine o'clock curfew for days, weeks, or as long as the two demonic housemothers decided was your punishment. In all the four years I lived there, I was campus-ed only once, and for coming in just minutes late. However, there were ways to get around it for girls who had ulterior plans. We could sign out for weekends, as long as we had a legitimate address with relatives that could be checked on. My sister used my aunt Sue's address and phone number. I didn't need it. I was very obedient.

Now you might suppose that I envied boys because they had all the sexual freedom that was denied to girls, even though they had other serious risks, like being forced into shotgun weddings, being hauled into family court for child support, and of course, eventually, unhappy marriages and divorces, But I neither resented nor envied boys because in my mind, it is was, and still is...so much harder to be a boy in our society, and in many ways, so much easier and more pleasurable to be a girl. Possibly in a banana republic or a primitive or savage society, boys would hold the greatest, distinct advantages, whereas girls would suffer from the moment of birth till their dying days. But this was America, the civilized highly industrial world, and girls clearly had, and still have the advantage...even from broken and/or dysfunctional homes, poor families, whatever excuses people used and still use to justify anti-social behavior. It's still way better being a girl, in my mind, any time, anywhere, particularly in America.

But I won't get into gender politics. To me, the real important differences between boys and girls, men and women, is not gender. It is the most important variable of all: character and personality, which is one, in my mind. Good or bad, young or old, successful or failed, lucky or unlucky, the important thing in our lives is our character/personality, no matter what else happens.

In the King James version of the Old Testament, and in the Hebrew Talmud, I have read "If you have understanding, what do you lack? If you lack understanding, what do you have?" This is the credo I live by, and it eliminates all the arguments for and against gender politics. You can substitute the word "wisdom" for understanding, but it amounts to the same thing. If you are wise, you are understanding, and if you are understanding you are wise, I believe. I carry this thought to another level: gender. If you have a great character/personality, what do you lack? If you lack a great character/personality, what do you have?

So it doesn't matter if you are male or female....in the modern world, at least. What matters is what you do with what you've got. How you play the hand that was dealt to you. I firmly believe it. And that's why, as the song goes, "I enjoy being a girl."