Annoyed with gender conformity standards

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(I hope I'm posting this in the right place.)

I am a straight female, but I'm more of what you would call a 'tomboy'. I do have long hair and maybe some feminine personality traits, but I dress masculine and tend to act (and maybe think) like a boy. This probably isn't a good thing, but being associated with anything considered 'feminine' is embarrassing for me.

As I write this, my church is hosting an youth girls' event called 'Princess Weekend'. I believe I am one of very few girls in the youth (grades 7-12) who didn't sign up. I've seen a couple photos on Facebook, one of which pictures two girls wearing pink boas and surrounded by pink, flowery?'girly'?decorations. I think the event was planned by my youth pastor's wife, who has held other such events in the past; they usually involved conventional 'girly' activities.

The youth boys also have an event planned: a camping trip. Though I can't say I would wholeheartedly enjoy that either, it still sounded better than the 'Princess Weekend'. My church has a habit of planning events like these; the boys' event caters to the conventionally masculine, and the girls' events are over-the-top with the femininity expected of girls.

Ironically, the theme of 'Princess Weekend' is 'be you'. It doesn't bother me that most of the girls in my youth are going; if they like that sort of thing, good for them. But what irked me was how my youth pastor's wife tried to encourage every single girl to go, then swore that it would be buckets of fun and that anyone else would be missing out. The people in my church don't ever seem to consider that not every girl wants to spend her weekend getting pedicures with giggly girls and acting like a pretty pink princess. Not every guy is going to want to do typical 'guy' stuff with all the other 'dudes'.

My church is also against gay marriage, so that makes me wonder whether they'd see non-conforming boys and girls in a bad light.

I know what that's like. I am also a straight female, but act much more like a guy. Always thought it was because I was raised around guys more than girls, but now I think it's more of an Asperger's thing (not that all girls with AS are tomboys, but I think it explains it for some).

I can remember, even from a very young age, being angry about gender stereotypes and not feeling like a "normal" girl. Going to fast food places would make me angry, because they gave me the "girl" toy with the meal, and I never liked it. Relatives would try to give me barbies, or plastic babies so I could pretend to be a mom. Everyone wanted me to wear skirts or dresses, and I just wanted baggy shorts. It made me angry, they didn't accept me for who I was, they just wanted me to be girly.

Now I notice these things more often. Like in movies or TV, why are girls usually not doing/saying much, just standing around looking attractive for men to stare at? While the men get to be the heroes, say the good lines, do the important things?

Do you understand that NTs do this with everything, not just gender issues?
It's not personal, they're just trying to cope with reality overload by pretending.
They will get upset if you show them raw reality because if they have to see your point they'd have to see everything in the universe and that is so very scary.
Denial of raw reality is a finely balanced "house of cards" for them, disprove one and the whole thing will come crashing down and make a mess of the living room.
And who's going to clean that up?

My sympathies, it is pretty awful that your church is choosing to gender stereotype their youth like this. You might be able to find a way to speak out about it, and try to get your youth group to do more gender neutral events in the future, but I don't know how much luck you will have.

Have you looked into other church youth groups in your area that might have better events/more liberal attitudes?

I can relate to how you feel. I'm a gay male and I've often hated much of traditionally masculine stuff (and most "girly" stuff). I guess I don't like anything strongly gendered. I have no problem with my biological sex but I hate the roles expected of it. And I hate it when people mock those who don't conform to the stereotype. Group situations (school, work and others) always made me uncomfortable and angry because most people have expectations of you based on your sex. I don't watch TV dramas, movies etc because they are full of gender expectations. In many ways people are forced to conform to them. Hypocritically many people claim to support liberation from such things.

I think churches and other religious people tend to try to cling to traditional things. They don't like changes because they are bound by whatever old principles they have. I don't think they will easily change things for you as their mindset is different.

Any way, can you simply stop going to church? I don't think there is any point if you don't like going there for whatever reason. Do your parents make you go there? You might as well make use of your weekends in a more productive, relaxing and/or fun way. I'm sure you can explain that to your parents or whoever expects you to go to church.

i was raised in a pretty heavy roman catholic background, i had my first communion when i was 8.
my parents were devout catholics when i was younger, and they forced me to go to church every sunday. they sort of got lazy with the churchgoing later on, and i don't go anymore. which is good. like you, i don't enjoy going. never did. i n fact, i think we stopped because of me and my sister's constant objections.

i can relate to you about being annoyed with the boy/girl gender roles. i don't go too deep into either end of the gender expectation spectrum but i like to try on makeup and occasionally wear girlyish clothes, much to my dad's dismay and my sisters enjoyment. my dad has always been the largest supporter of traditional gender roles i know, hell, i remember him saying that boys need to have short hair, and girls long.
i see my male friends and acquaintances from elementary school, and now they all seem much more traditionally 'manly' than me. that doesn't mean i don't enjoy indulging in the occasional manly activity though.

i know you said that you don't like to go to church, but are you still interested in religious studies? if/when your parents ever stop forcing you to go to church you have the choice of practicing and interpreting religion in your own way...but that's if you're interested, which i don't know if you are. i know that i didn't want anything to do with christianity at all after we stopped going. my sister even looked into buddhism for a while.

i hope it goes well with your parents and you get to understand each other better.