|
       |
 |
 PAGES < 1 | 2 >
   Excerpts from the book Girls in America: Their Stories, Their Words, by Carol Cassidy, TVBooks, 1999 Andrea, 18 West Columbia, South Carolina I was a big tomboy. I grew up on the trampoline, on the four-wheelers, on the motorcycles, just anything that dealt with wallerin' in the dirt or fightin' with the boys. Go-carts, football. I was an outside little girl. I wanted to get dirty. I loved my Barbies, but I used to rip their heads off. I was a typical tomboy. I don't think you could have gotten me in one of those frilly ruffle dresses when I was little. I would have died. You would have had to tie me down to get me in one. And then I would have been out in the dirt, wallerin' in it. I was quite on the heavy side when I was a little girl. I used to get picked on all the time. I reckon right when puberty hit in - I don't even remember losing the weight or anything. All I remember is just, next thing I know - it was almost like waking up one morning and I was totally different. That's why I'm in beauty pageants today. I've grown up so much that I have a good time being the person that I turned out to be. I've totally changed from what I was when I was younger. I really am totally different from what I was like as a little girl. Totally, but not drastically, at all. I reckon it probably was around 6th grade. Puberty had a lot to do with it. You start getting interested in - boys. You start noticing stuff. I think that's when I decided I needed to grow up and be a girl like I was supposed to be when I was born. Girls like me, I don't have any boobs, so I have to add 'em. A lot of times I will get like cloth boobs sewn into my dress. My mom just bought me the jelly type. They're a lot more comfortable than the cotton ones. They feel like the silicone implants that girls get. A lot of girls use duct tape to tape their boobs up. To get them to stay and give them cleavage. I done it one time and I'll tell you, I'll never do it again! It hurts! It takes really two people. You pretty much lean over, and push your boobs up and someone else will tape you underneath. It keeps your boobs up right where you had them. Oh, it's painful! You start right underneath your armpit and, do kinda like a smiley face kinda look. Just to get 'em to hold up. If you have a dress that's low cut and you need to have some cleavage, and adding some fake boobs isn't gonna help - a lot girls will tape. Some girls either use duct tape or that gray tape, and it hurts. All the hair spray and ughhh...it makes me sick! It's even worse trying to get it all off than it is to put it all on. You got so much make-up on, you could put your hands on your face and just see it, and it's - ughh! I can't stand wearing a lot of make-up. I like getting all that stuff off, it drives me nuts. I hate it. But the hair, the make-up - you've got to do it. You don't have a choice. I reckon sometimes when you get up in the morning you're like, "God, I gotta do my hair, I gotta do my make-up." You get to the point where you're just like, "I don't want to do any of it." You just want to put your hair in a ponytail and go. You don't care what you look like. You just want to go back to that little girl who didn't care, who just got up and played all the time, and that's all she had to worry about. I would love to go back to being a little girl again. I wish I could go be like the boys, just go play and do what I want to do. But I can't. Chelsea, 16 El Dorado Hills, California I get it a lot from my sisters. They're like, (she mimics them) "Oh, let me dress you up! You should wear a skirt to school! Let me curl your hair." It's too much to maintain. It's so annoying. You have to worry about so much more. I don't need the added stress. But I kinda feel the pressure cause people like, they wonder, "Oh, you don't wear make-up?" "No." So, I feel it. You kinda wonder, do guys want all that make-up? I mean, it's only fake. It's just like painting. Don't they want the real thing? You can't know if that's what they want. But, if they only want you because you wear make-up, then why would you want them anyways? I think I kinda always knew I had strength and power. I've always been pretty aggressive. A lot of girls don't always try their hardest cause they're kind of afraid of the image they might portray, like they're some sort of sports fanatic. They want to be viewed as a prissy little girl, you know, (imitates a simpering priss) "putting on their make-up." I never really cared what other people think cause I've always been kind of a tomboy. Rugby's great cause it's a contact sport. It kinda gives you an adrenaline rush. You just get to run and tackle them. It's a lot funner to tackle in the mud cause you don't get so scratched up. In most other sports, you don't really wanna get muddy, cause you know, (she mimics a girly-girl voice) "You're girls and you should stay clean." In rugby, you can get all muddy, and like, mud dripping off your hair. I just think it's a cool sport because of that. Girls in general, they're not allowed, in society, to be more aggressive and actually use their strength and their power. So I think it's just kinda fun, kinda like showing off. You just use all your strength and take somebody down. It's not really like you're like mad or anything. It's just, you actually have a sport where you can use all your strength. You get a rush and you run and you just slam into them, man, and you can feel it like in slow motion, going down, you're just like "roahhhr" and you splat into the mud and all the mud goes up everywhere. When you tackle somebody it just helps - you're just like "grrrrrrr." It just gives you more of a boost. You get to push people around, kinda have a little more aggression in there, get down in the mud, tackle some people, get rough. PAGES < 1 | 2 >
|