Everyone has the option to not adjust their character and live with the result even if it's poor. We all make our own decisions if we wish to play the game.
Or you can try to destroy the game. That's another option.
When I was little, I wore pink.
Gasp.
And I played with Barbies.
A lot.
I sewed clothes for my Barbie dolls, and I orchestrated a boatload of weddings and parties and lots of drama.
I also, from time to time, had a funeral for one of them after my brother and I would experiment with his stash of m-80's (back when they were legal) and some of my older Barbies.
I chased lizards and had a pet horned toad. I climbed trees and played kick ball.
It never occurred to me that I either had to be feminine or something else.
I still refuse to accept that tenet. The whole comment about "throwing up a bit in my mouth" at the description of femininity grated a bit, as I embrace most of those character traits and am happy that I do. I also run a tech company and deal with engineers in a mostly male industry. And I've yet to let anyone else's attitude about whether I'm too nice, sweet, frilly or any other adjective change who I am or what I am doing.
I am a strong supporter of women-based STEM advocacy groups, but only if the focus is on creating opportunities. This whole angry, fight-the-man attitude is tiresome to me and has no real benefit.
My daughter played with Barbies. She also is about a non-conventional as they come. She skateboards in lacy skirts, scales a rocky cliff in frilly tops and embraces the high tech world of graphic art as easily and readily as she hikes out into the middle of nowhere to create graffiti in an abandoned arroyo. The fact that she is so different than me makes me proud, because it lets me believe that I fostered an environment that let her decide who she was enough to be comfortable being whatever that was.
So bring on the feminine and frilly and sweet and gentle. It doesn't have to be all we are, but it should be something we're able to be without settling for less that what we want to be.
