Red Nail Polish and Safety Glasses

As a little girl I was different: you could not categorize me as a "tomboy" or a "girlie girl". I loved to wear dresses but also climb trees, and yes, I climbed tress while wearing dresses. I insisted on painting my nails an array of different colors but never did this stop me from getting my polished fingers into a mud puddle to create squishy mud pies. To school, I wore bows in my braided long hair but at recess I played with the boys. After all, they were the ones who knew how to have fun at recess by using the time to unearth beetles and worms. My favorite picture of me as a girl depicts this dichotomy perfectly: I am wearing my pink glasses and my nails are painted bright red. Yet, my hands are muddy and I am proudly holding up a large toad I had just caught at the lake.

I hadn't thought about this in many years, until recently, when realizing how my wardrobe has changed in the past few years. I used to concern myself much more with looking fashionable and trendy. These days, being trendy seems like too much work. I have better things to think about and pour my time and energy into (not to mention my money). But for some reason, maybe because it is summer, I have been more observant of young women my age who have darling little handbags to go with their cutsie little shoes that go perfect with their jewelry and nice clothes. Part of me says- yuck, barbie girls. The other part thinks, "have I let myself go?" People wouldn't guess I think this. I put up a front that says "I don't care about this stuff, I'm an intellectual with better things on my mind." Much of the time this front is probably the reality but at times, secretly, I yearn to be told I'm pretty. I do care when I go out with my more "done up" girlfriends and the guys oogle over them.

It seems the dichotomy from my youth has become much more complex. You see, I want to be taken seriously and to be seen as a smart woman. Yet, I don't want to give up all of my feminine indulgences. It's true- I like painting my nails, wearing jewelry, and having nice clothes. But I feel like wearing nail polish and black dress pants makes you look awfully silly when you are working in a chemistry lab. I feel like wearing a skirt to class when you are a chemistry major makes you look like you belong in a different department. I catch myself thinking, "this shirt is way too girly for work" or "I better avoid the red nail polish and stick with the clear." Why? Why do I feel like I have to tone my femininity down? I'm not sure what it is I'm picking up on, maybe it's just me, but I tend to be dead on when it comes to these unspoken rules.