Liz Prince’s Tomboy reminded me of a text I had read in my Gender and Sexuality class last semester. The book I read in that class was also a graphic novel called Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe. Both Kobabe and Prince share life experiences of individuals who are faced with the pressure to conform to feminine gender expectations. In Gender Queer, the main character is faced with some of the same struggles as the narrator in Prince’s text. The narrator in Gender Queer is also a tomboy of a sorts whose parents don’t really care whether or not their child ‘acts’ like a girl even though e were born female. In Gender Queer, however, the narrator’s parents are much more relaxed in follow gender expectations themselves, compared to the parents in Tomboy, with the parents in Kobabe’s piece challenging gender expectations by er’s father having long hair and wearing feminine looking clothing and er’s mother not shaving her legs and armpits and wearing more masculine looking clothing.
The narrator in Gender Queer also faces similar struggles in school, being labeled as a lesbian by er’s peers, who assume er sexuality because e dresses more masculine. It is not until e finds a place in an LGBTQ+ & allies club that e feels more support. I’m not sure what will happen after the provided section of Tomboy, but hopefully the narrator is able to find support as they explore their sexuality .
It’s also interesting how both of these texts mention the desire to wear all clothing that has been marketed for boys, even undergarments. I think this shows how clothing for these characters is a form of not just outward, but also inward expression. To wear masculine gendered clothing is to create an appearance where these characters feel safe and comfortable with themselves. It is to allow them to feel love, safety, and comfort in their bodies–to express themselves in a way that facilitates that love and comfort. Unlike the narrator in Tomboy, the narrator in Gender Queer goes until er early adulthood wearing women’s underwear. E felt so uncomfortable because e was unaware that they could buy boys underwear to wear. It was not until e’s sister suggested it that e felt comfortable buying boys underwear.
I also found it interesting in how both narrators had an important, close friendship with a boy in their childhood that shaped who they were as a person. In Gender Queer, the narrator has a close friendship with er’s neighbor, playing many games that are gendered masculine. It is not until e goes to school that gender expectations are pressed on er and er’s friend that the two of them end up distancing from the friendship because er’s friend is told that he should not be friends with the narrator since “girls have cooties”. The narrator in Tomboy also has a close friendship with their cousin playing pretend games that are gendered masculine, where the narrator dresses up but as characters that are men. This similarity between the characters in these books show how important friendships are in building a child’s identity. Through these friendships the narrators were able to explore and discover the way society functions and the place the narrators play in it.
Current Media in this Section
Within the excepts of The Hidden Hand assigned, a topic that came up repeatedly, especially on pages 181, 194, and 195, is the fact that Capitola does not ‘obey’ Old Hurricane. This expectation for young girls to obey a father figure is something seen in our current culture. Specifically, I watched an Instagram post a few days ago about how many hyper conservatives are pushing for women in college to learn how to be good wives. The implication in this video was that these conservatives wanted women to learn how to be submissive wives. This relates to this theme in this novel of the expectation for women and girls to be submissive and the desire by men for women to follow what they say, to obey them. Wanting women to learn how to do this college carries the same message as Old Hurricane wanting Capitola to obey him.
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