On Being a Girly Girl

Grandma doesn’t have enough to do, apparently. Because today, in a successful effort to exit grim medical, familial, and economic realities, I found myself looking up girly girl. Now, there was somehow a connection with the things on my mind, with sad thoughts about a sweet older woman whose life has been forfeited to her desire to be liked. This is not a case of “I’m just a girl who can’t say no” to sex, as in the song from Oklahoma. It’s “can’t” say No to husband or kids or grandkids. Can’t say “Want/don’t want,” the way we all knew how to do when we were born. She’s a very, umm, feminine lady. Everyone likes her. Why wouldn't they?

Thinking about the Sweet Feminine led me to recall my dismay when a woman I know told me her brilliant college-age daughter “can be a girly-girl when she wants to.” Uh-oh, I thought. We have here a disagreement in values. Some time later the girl in question officially became “a hottie,” scoring high on a campus quiz at her college. My dismay shot through the ceiling. I just didn’t think being visibly sexy, let alone girly-girl, was going to help the young woman in her medical career. (On further thought, I saw that it might help after all. But still . . . )

In search of the diversion from Reality that sometimes just won’t come your way, I strolled through the internet until I found a quiz to take. It has been quite a while since I took any sort of quiz, and I don’t remember anything like this in last century's self-help. Here it is. Try not to overwhelm the site with hits.

http://www.blogthings.com/howgirlyareyouquiz/

I was afraid as I went through the thing that I was going to score really high. I don’t like camping, I do like puppies, I can't sink a basket. Stuff like that. On the other hand, not only do I not own five pair of heels, I don’t own five pair of shoes.

But my score reassured me that though I am softhearted and have a taste for creature comforts, I am still a person. Here it is, spelling intact.

You are 28% Girly.
You are a pretty hardcore tomboy, and a very free spirit.
Gender roles be dammed, you like to do things your way.

I’ve been told worse.