Please Don't Use The Word Tom Boy

Please Don't Use The Word Tom Boy

Our Daughter and Her Friends Conversation


Friend - Are you a Tom Boy?

Daughter - What is a Tom Boy?

Friend - It’s a girl who likes boy stuff.

Daughter - I don’t even know what that means.

Friend - Well, like you’re a girl, but you like boys stuff.

Daughter - That makes no sense. I’m a girl and I just like stuff. I have no idea what you mean.

Friend - Ya but you like skate boarding and video games, sports, and kickboxing those are boys stuff. You can do anything boys do.

Daughter - That's the most ridiculous thing ever. I like all kinds of stuff and I’m a girl. You can do anything too.

Up until the other day our Daughter had never heard the term “Tom boy” because we don’t even use that word. When I was a kid, it was sort of considered to be compliment if you were a girl who was called a Tom boy. It felt like a badge of honor, as adults and other kids would say to me, "you can do anything boys can do."

Now that my husband and I are raising daughters, (7 and 18 years old,) we realize how sexist a label like that is for girls.

Quite frankly it is sexist. I hadn't given it much thought until we over heard our 7 year old daughters conversation with her friend.

Why can’t we just let girls be girls, in all their multiplicity?

There's no single model of what a girl or boy should be, but the term implies that a girl who doesn’t embrace traditionally feminine interests needs a modifier like “Tom boy.”

I dislike that word today, because it implies that a girl who does not conform to girl-coded cultural stereotypes is not only not really a girl, but somehow a kind of a boy.

It tells girls (and boys, and women, and men) that there is a right way of being a girl, and a wrong way of being a girl, and if you’re the ‘wrong’ kind of girl, then actually you’re more of a boy.

That’s messed up, when you think about it. And that is why we have never used that word. It makes them feel limited. It constrains their own understanding of their horizons of possibility.

It also has this negative connotation if you aren't a Tom Boy, that you aren't as capable in doing things that were once considered a boys thing.

When we call our young daughters Tom Boy's, it tells them, you have to fit inside these boxes, and don’t you dare step out of line.

I love that our daughter loves to do many things and it has no label.

She’s just a girl being herself.



Its a natural phenomenon that a male wants interaction with female and vice versa,thats why female like male stuff and vice versa.

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Konstantin Tkalenko

Full-stack Software Engineer / Solution Architecture Specialist / IT Consultant

4 年

Labelling is bad in any case, not only if it addressed to a girl.

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Shiri Gabriel, The Networking Coach

Tailored training programs to turn your sales team into networking ninjas ?? who always exceed their targets. DM me "NETWORKING NINJAS" if you want to become one.

4 年

Melanie I've been called that since I was little. And I've explained to people how wrong that is! Thanks for sharing. The problem is when people use words and don't really think about the meaning behind them.

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Marc Andrew Phelps

Selling Warehouse Automation // GeekPlus // Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR's + ASRS') // Let's Connect!

4 年

Good article! Nice post Mel !

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Michael David Chapman

Co-Owner ? Husband ? Father of 4 ? INFJ

4 年

"Can you do an Ollie Kick Flip with headphones blaring The Chronic?" Asking something like that answers the same damn question absent of the offense and a way better chance for great conversation.

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