October 24, 2010
6:20pm

I was up at camp this weekend and one of my fellow staff members who I am do not know very well blurted out "my brother married my best friend and now they are getting a divorce and my whole family blames me for setting them up in the first place". All I could think was "wow" and "why are you telling me this?" but instead said "do you want to talk about it?" Her response was "no. I don't know. Well I don't know how to be a girl and so I don't know how to deal with this, so I figure I should talk about it with someone who does know how to be a girl, so that is what I am doing. So yeah, I guess we can talk about it". I was so perplexed by this idea that she did not know how to be a girl. I do not know her very well and I never cared to get to know her because she is a bit too crass for my taste, but in this moment I felt bad for her. I learned she grew up with 3 brothers and an unemotional mother and therefore had not learned the social construction of being a girl. I think it is a very interesting topic and she exemplifies how society constructs what is meant to be a girl.