Do Tom Boys have female socialisation?

Anyway, since when did being a "tomboy" mean "not a girl" ??
It's nonsense, it's just another label put on girls.
Tomboys are/were girls. Gender non conforming girls.

It's sad that tomboy has become an anachronism. It used to just mean "type of girl". Who was subject to the same stereotyping as other girls like the ones with the bad names.

Does rejecting gender norms and not identifying with girls alter how you receive all these gendered messages?

It doesn't really matter how you identify internally.

When you are a girl, you're treated like a girl, you're socialised as a girl.

When you're not a girl, you're not socialised as a girl.

Do tom boys have the same socialisation as "normal" girls?

Yes, because 'tomboyishness' is not necessarily driven by being 'abnormal', as you put it. The socialisation is applied externally.

Does rejecting gender norms and not identifying with girls alter how you receive all these gendered messages?

Only, I think, in the sense that such a girl would receive more negative messages, and she would be more likely to interpret neutral or gendered messages as negative.

This: "Few of my female relatives did hair, make up or clothes; but we were all expected to be skivvies, to always reduce ourselves, be passive, never push ourselves forwards. Shut up and put up.
The men and boys came first. They ate first, they got the best of everything. By the age of 8 I could do all of the housework, and cook a 3 course roast dinner. I had to learn to take responsibility."

I agree with pps who have said that tomboys are mainstream. It's a normal girl path so yes it's all the same female socialisation.

It's a double bind that women are in, where both embracing your correct gender role and rejecting your gender role is a sign of internalised misogyny. You get punished either way.

Yes, exactly. You lose no matter what you do. That's the patriarchy.

Of course they do. You say it yourself "The adults and my friends knew I was really a girl". Parents, teachers, doctors, playgroup/sports, books, magazines, television. We're surrounded by it. Some rando calling you 'sonny" doesn't undo any of that.

It’s a bit hard to quantify the socialisation. Sure people can be unaware of how they have been socialised. But I think also, others can’t understand all the experience of an individual.

Should we change socialisation? Should we get more girls into physics and boys into nursing? Or should we value nursing more than physics?

I think kids at primary school seem to exacerbate sex differences a lot more - preferring to play with those of the same sex and enforcing rules. I think it’s probably more than many adults do.

I was a tomboy and it has continued throughout my life ( I am nearing 60). I have had long term relationships with both men and women. I am currently married to a man..
I have long hair but my DH has even longer hair. He wears more makeup than me when we go out. I have no dresses and I don't have any heels. This weekend saw me putting a new bathroom suite in. I can cook and bake and I am an excellent home maker.
I have been raped, had an abortion, been sexually assaulted more times than I can remember. As a child and a punk teen I was regularly seen as male and then as androgynous. Apparently my uni peers thought I was a lad until I got pregnant and then it was obvious I wasn't. I have been talked down to, I have been passed over for promotion, I have been paid less than my male colleagues. All because I am a woman.

DD is in her 30s. When she was 4 she said she had stopped being a girl and for about 18 months she would only answer to the name 'Bob' . We called her bob but I always said she was a girl. She asked for traditionally male clothes and toys...I provided them.
When she started school she lost Bob and reverted back to her real name.
Then when she was 14 she came out to me as a lesbian. It all made sense....at 4 she had no idea what being gay was. She had no idea ( and quite rightly) about sex and sexuality. Being bob was obviously her young mind sorting out who she is. I gave her a similar upbringing to mine...I taught her how to change a tyre, put up a shelf and make a fucking excellent Victoria sponge.
If I had been a child now I would've been transed, my daughters would probably not be here, my grandson wouldn't either. I wouldn't be with the love of my life who definitely wants to be with a woman with a vagina!
But the most scary thing is my beautiful butch lesbian daughter would've also been transed and would now be living a medically managed existence.

The thought horrifies me

I was the same- hated dresses, most of my friends were boys at primary, never been a girly girl. Loved the way things worked or how they were put together, good spatial awareness etc. My sister used to call me practical as an insult!
Mum said if I’d been born today I would have been targeted by the woke questioning my gender. But here I am as a straight female knowing I’m a woman. 🙂

This thread does illustrate the problem of which trans is just the latest iteration.

As soon as anyone adopts any kind of masculine gender role that role always relies on there being women and girls who are seen as subordinate, stereotypical and to blame if they don’t incessantly cheerlead for masculinity.

And I have never known any child, male or female, who didn’t sometimes act in a care taking role towards a doll or soft toy. Having no caring instincts is not a badge of honour.

When I was primary school age, I definitely came under the description of a tomboy. I wasn't the slightest bit interested in dolls etc. and much preferred wearing shorts or jeans than dresses or skirts. I had quite short hair and was flat-chested too, but because I had to wear girls clothes at school, my friends knew I was female but didn't treat me any different from the boys.

I preferred the boys type games, but wasn't the only girl to do so. On occasions I think my mum would have preferred to be a bit more feminine, but she didn't make a big thing about it.
Things started to change once I was at secondary school. For one thing we had separate boys and girls schools, so I began to drift apart from the boys and for another I was becoming self conscious about my developing figure.

I think some posters are missing the point. Tomboys are girls who just do normal stuff (as it seems to us), and get told they are getting 'being a girl' wrong, by the people around them.

I don't remember any of us getting pulled up for not being girly enough. I think most of that is social expectation of the people around you
Yes, thats what pp have been saying. You didn't get labelled a tomboy, but we did. The label stuck because we had to be a bit defiant to carry on doing the stuff we liked and not get pulled into line.

I was seen as a Tom boy as a child, I hated it as to me I was just a child. It did me no good as girls wouldn't play with me at all and I never developed any female friendships, I went into an industry which was nearly exclusively male and still is, I was always the token woman. It caused no end of problems, least of all the total lack of the ability to relate to other women but not belonging with the men either. I'd have been forced down the trans route if it had been a thing then and that wouldn't have been right for me.

We all spent our days playing outside in the mud and the grass, climbing trees, collecting sticks, we all wore dungarees and tracksuits. Lego was our go to toy.

Same here, most of the kids around where we lived, whether male of female, did. 70s. All our parents would have thought there was something wrong with you if you didn't want to spend all day, every day 'out and about' with your pals doing physical stuff all through the summer.

I do get whatDido means though re the tomboy "not like other girls" narrrative. Personally most of my childhood I and ALL my female friends thought and was treated as if it was quite natural to do 'both' tree climbing/bike riding and then party dresses etc if we wanted, but everyone was just themselves.. I don't remember any of us getting pulled up for not being girly enough. I think most of that is social expectation of the people around you, and my recollection is of that really changing more from the 80s onwards and the 'girl/boy' toy marketing intensifying.

What I DO remember though is a very conscious so-called "tomboy" phase I had aged around 10 when I refused point blank to do or wear anything that was deemed girly at all and was delighted if people thought I was a boy. It wasn't that I "wasn't like the other girls" or thought I wasn't really a girl. It was conscious because I think the social expectations of impending teenhood started to become more apparent to me (perhaps parents had tried to reign me in a bit in a "Now is the time to put away childish things" type way. And I do remember some of the girls at school starting to develop be 'more grown up' and get more stereotypically teeny in their behaviour)
I distinctly remember this feeling that my freedom was about to be taken away and really not wanting it to and not feeling ready. So I guess I must at least have been very aware of the social aspects of gender expectations and finding them rigid.

I too grew up looking like a boy, wore shorts tees jeans and jumpers year round, hated dresses with a passion. (bare in mind this was the 60's and 70's)Was mistaken for a boy often, rode bikes, horses, played with girls and boys the main most annoying boy is now my Dh
Had a shoebox filled with matchbox cars, and babydolls that gathered dust.
Lots of strong women in the family all independant and raised kids alone. Sister was the epitome of girliness in her frills and had long hair.
I knew I was a girl, just didn't conform to the girl approved ways.
I had to explain all this to Dd not long ago, she was doubting herself, she likes boy stuff as well as girl, does it mean she's gay or bi or should be trans?
I told her who cares what you like, there are girls and boys who don't conform, they are who they are, and just like what they like, it doesn't mean they should take hormones and get body parts choppped off.
Men who are more feminine or delicate are just as much a man as a woman with short hair and tattoos is a woman.
If we all liked the same things how boring life would be

It is also really irritating to write off the whole of the rest of the female population in OPs school as 'not like her' and surmising they all rejected and excluded her for this one aspect of herself. I think that shows a massively low opinion of women and girls and the focus is on the girls not mixing with her not the boys not mixing with girls in general. I think it's sexist stereotyping

I agree entirely.

During the Holocaust, very young Jewish boys on Nazi-occupied areas were sometimes disguised as girls so that they could be hidden in plain view. Many children were hidden in one way or another, and most were severely traumatised by their experiences. I wonder whether there were any follow-up studies on these boys who were taught to 'be' girls from a very early age, and were treated as girls by everyone.

DJLippy

Didoyou should have told all the girls who rejected me for being just another ordinary girl

I was bullied by a group of non- academically inclined girls for being clever. So what?

You said Because growing up I WAS different from other girls - I bet every single teenager thinks they are different.

Stop jumping on threads and derailing them and making them all about YOU

Almost every one who has posted has posted has given their personal experience. My posts are no more all about me than anyone else's.

I have questioned why "gender critical feminists " are so determined to insist that activities which are no more or less activities which many children, girls and boys do, are some how proof that they were "tomboys". It's no different from trans activists insisting on gendered activities determine what gender one is.

Riding a cycle as a child no more makes you a tomboy than it makes you a trans boy.

Stop jumping on threads and derailing them and making them all about YOU.