Anon

One of the most difficult things about being female is other people expecting you to behave a certain way even when you don’t. You are also expected to be interested in certain things even when you aren’t. Often what you are actually interested in (especially science or technology) is dismissed or ignored by people around you.

People imagine you to be a certain way even when you aren’t. They expect you to appear a certain way when in reality, you don’t look that way at all.

On a college science field trip, a male coach driver handed me my bag, took one look at me and said laughing that it must be “full of make-up” because I was a “lady”. At the time I was wearing plain tracksuit bottoms and no make up on my face aside from transparent (invisible) chapstick. He sadly did not ask me about what fieldwork I was doing or what science I was studying on the trip. He seemed to talk to the males in a more positive and different way than he did the females. This was unnerving.

It is now painfully and disturbingly clear that the man must have hallucinated me wearing eyeshadow, blusher and eye-pencil when in reality I was wearing nothing save chap-stick. The reality is that I have never worn these types of make-up because lots of make up contains toxic chemicals, I see no practical logical point in wearing something that will run off in rainwater (we would be working outside) and also I would have no idea how to apply something like eyeliner because I have never worn it in my entire life!

Throughout my life, people have assumed that I would like to wear make up just because I am a woman. Lots of presents I received were make up that people incorrectly assumed that I would like (I eventually gave these presents to my sister and she was glad to have them). Some people can’t seem to see the fact that I am wearing practically no make-up, yet they seem to assume that I would want to wear some just because I have a female name. Weird.