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Re: Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress
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From: Christine Baldacchino <clbaldacchino_at_gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 21 May 2014 20:36:34 -0400
Thanks so much, KT!
Actually, I've got two new stories in the works, one of which deals with gender nonconformity from a girl's perspective!
When discussing the idea with friends and relatives, I do get the occasional "Girls can play sports and wear pants now. What else is there to talk about?" But there's so much more to gender nonconformity than just being able to get a haircut and throw on a pair of trousers. When I was a child, I couldn't understand that my mum was worried about things like my sexuality, whether or not I'd be able to find a husband, whether or not she'd ever get any grandchildren out of me, and, of course, what our friends and family might read into my "tomboyish" behavior. All I remember thinking at the time was, "If I'm not a girl, then what am I?" That's a pretty heavy question for a kid, and it took up a lot of space in my brain that could have been used for, well, anything else. The eventual answer to that question (in my case), was that I was a girl. I just didn't gel with my family's idea of how a girl should look and act.
I think the case with Morris was timing. I was inspired to write Morris, and then, once my niece came along, I saw all the same pressures being put on her by my family that were put on me when I was a child. It was "dump the dump trucks and learn all the Disney princesses' names" all over again.
I realized that young girls still need our voices, too.
Christine
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Received on Wed 21 May 2014 07:36:57 PM CDT
Date: Wed, 21 May 2014 20:36:34 -0400
Thanks so much, KT!
Actually, I've got two new stories in the works, one of which deals with gender nonconformity from a girl's perspective!
When discussing the idea with friends and relatives, I do get the occasional "Girls can play sports and wear pants now. What else is there to talk about?" But there's so much more to gender nonconformity than just being able to get a haircut and throw on a pair of trousers. When I was a child, I couldn't understand that my mum was worried about things like my sexuality, whether or not I'd be able to find a husband, whether or not she'd ever get any grandchildren out of me, and, of course, what our friends and family might read into my "tomboyish" behavior. All I remember thinking at the time was, "If I'm not a girl, then what am I?" That's a pretty heavy question for a kid, and it took up a lot of space in my brain that could have been used for, well, anything else. The eventual answer to that question (in my case), was that I was a girl. I just didn't gel with my family's idea of how a girl should look and act.
I think the case with Morris was timing. I was inspired to write Morris, and then, once my niece came along, I saw all the same pressures being put on her by my family that were put on me when I was a child. It was "dump the dump trucks and learn all the Disney princesses' names" all over again.
I realized that young girls still need our voices, too.
Christine
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Received on Wed 21 May 2014 07:36:57 PM CDT
