Why do boys acting girlish bother people more than tom-boyish girls?

For kids it’s easy to try and fit in. I had a lot of friends as kids who liked playing with dolls more than cars and such [guys friends] and girls who wanted to be more into boys stuff like climbing trees and acting rude toward some people.

But if they are kids I don’t think it bothers anyone unless you want to share more with us.

Because tomboys are hot.

I just had this discussion with my parents recently… and I was kind of shocked to hear my father say something about not wanting a “girly-boy” for a grandson, because he wants someone to pass his tools onto. It just blew me away, because I always think of my dad as being extremely accepting, progressive.. he has always been “to each his own, if it’s not hurting anybody” in his beliefs.
It was also shocking, because not only did my parents embrace the tomboyish traits in us girls, but my mom always heavily encouraged it. Anyhow, my dad rethought his stance and took back what he said after we talked about it, but it really did surprise me.

I think that modern women and girls are encouraged now, more than historically, to embrace independence and stepping out of the cliche feminine mold. That hasn’t caught on for men as strongly, yet, but I hope that it will.

For children being brought up by parents or guardians that view boys adopting male ways and girls adopting feminine ways as what is right and best. They not only wanted to protect their child from ridicule, but there may have been a concern about being judged by the community for how their child turned out.

In my experience as a child born in the early ‘60s in the US, people didn’t see tomboys as an issue. It was healthy for them to play sports, and once they hit their teens, the majority would turn their interests to boys and make-up and dresses. And it often happened to turn out this way. Women’s fight for rights started a long time ago, so people became accustomed to them wearing trousers in public instead of dresses. Women’s sports became popular There was more freedom to be publicly assertive. Men, on the other hand, have not had this opportunity until recently. It’s still a work in progress.

Yes jellies but that’s what I mean… why is it so?? Why isn’t is as accepted as the other way round?

I feel it boils down to the age old “women are the weaker/less desirable sex” issue. And I don’t say “desirable” to mean coveted I meant they are considered the inferior sex. I think women were and still are considered the gender to be (for lack of a better word) embarrassed of. It would be ridiculous and unacceptable for a boy to act that way because hell why would he want to go and do silly and useless things such as play with dolls and wear dresses.

Probably for the same reason that lesbians are not as big of a “hot topic” nor do they generate as much feelings of disgust toward them.

Men tend to be threatened by gay males (and by extension, feminine boys) because they think/believe/fear that they are going to get “hit on” or “raped” or “recruited” or “outed” by them.

On the other hand, men love the idea of lesbian sex. And women and girls simply don’t tend to think about tomboys and lesbians in the same (sexual) way that males think about gay guys and feminine boys.

Most women are happy to have some female friends that act typically girly and like to wear make up and high heels, but they’re also pretty thrilled to have some female friends that can change their own oil, climb a tree and hook up an entertainment center. For most women (I’m going by my own experience here folks so don’t get all upset if you don’t feel the same way) it doesn’t even occur to us that a tomboy or a lesbian would be out to “hit on us” or “rape” us or “recruit us.” We’re just happy to have good friends, whichever kind of package they come in.

And for men, the loss of masculinity is seen as a horrible, dreadful thing, whereas with women, gaining some of traits that are traditionally seen as male traits such as physical strength, not being afraid of bugs, and knowing how to construct things as seen as a positive.

Also the nasty word “faggot” has a much uglier connotation than the word “lezzy”. I’ve told this story before, but within my close knit group of friends, my best friend and I have often been called “lezzies” before and it just makes us laugh. It really makes our 2 lesbian friends laugh, because no one suspects that they are actually gay. Plus playing ouselves off as “lezzies” tends to keep the creepy dudes at bay, when we all go out for a girls night out.

Enforced gender norms by society. Each gender has a double standard as well.

I wish I had a logical answer for this, but I wonder the same thing.

I was going through that ‘abc collections’ catalog and reading the descriptions of everything (a habit. some people read cereal boxes, I read catalogs) and noticed that every traditionally feminine toy specified that it was a “toy for girls”, but the traditionally masculine toys were “for kids”. ‘Girls can make these friendship bracelets’ and ‘girls will love ‘raising’ this doll!’ but God forbid a boy wants to play house! Boys don’t want families, they want to shoot things!! The ‘fbi guns’ were said to be ‘fun for your children’ – no gender specified. The train set? ‘A great kids’ toy’.

Partly the enforced gender norms as @Blackberry said, but the differing severity I think stems from the fact that privilege is viewed as property (complete with ‘property rights’) by those that hold it, and hold it particularly strongly. It’s kind of the same reason why white supremacists hate “race traitors” more than ethnic minorities. These “traitors” probably make them reevaluate their own reality and privilege.

@Jellie I think you answered your own question. It is a form of sexism. Men are still viewed by some to be the “superior” sex, and so if a woman emulates a man, that’s seen as acceptable or understandable. But if a boy wants to do stereotypically feminine things, he’s seen as debasing himself.

I have always wondered if this phenomenon is sexism against boys or girls. In one way it seems sexist against boys because it is placing a standard upon them that girls don’t necessarily need to uphold – act your sex, it’s unacceptable if you don’t. On the other hand, it seems like it might be sexism against girls because the implication is that female behavior is less universally acceptable than male behavior; there’s something wrong with it.

Relatedly, “masculinity” is something that men in general feel a lot more defensive about than women feel about their femininity. You hear all the time about how important it is for men to feel “confident in their masculinity.” You don’t hear that about femininity. A lot of men really take an inordinate amount of pride in their manliness – these are the men who brag about sexual conquests and are susceptible to being homophobic because, to them, homosexuality is the ultimate lack of manliness. So is feminine behavior.

But why is this more common in men than in women? I can’t say for sure, but I imagine it might have something to do with the way the two sexes have diverged via evolution. Evolutionary psychology (which I fully admit isn’t a solid science and has a lot of flaws) theorizes that the male brain is “programmed” to care more about quantity than quality of sexual partners, while women are the opposite (I can justify this statement if you want). Since women care about quality, men need to demonstrate they are good quality partners in order to woo women and achieve their end of lots of sex. The qualities that women are programmed to consider important when choosing “good quality” partners are qualities that will result in healthy babies, qualities that indicate the man will be able to protect and provide for those babies, and qualities that indicate that those babies will eventually be likely to procreate successfully. This means that men are very eager to demonstrate that they are healthy (physically fit), can protect and provide (physically fit, large, muscular, aggressive, skilled), and fertile (testosterone-laden). As you can see, most of those adjectives I just listed are very “masculine” qualities. So I suspect this may well be the reason that so many men are so very bent on coming across as very masculine.

Using your descriptions, the guys I knew like that never grew out of it. The girls did. To the extent that it bothers people, that might be it.

Great Question. I take it to be an extension of misogyny. I was a towhead blonde kid that looked quite girlish and I loved the fine things girls got to dress in. This caused my parents no small level of angst. I finally grew out of it when I started becoming fully masculine and realized that even sex reassignment surgery doesn’t change the fact that I have XY chromosomes and nothing will ever change that. So now I’m perfectly completable in my very masculine skin. But I still have a soft spot in my heart for the truly effeminate boys who are comfortable being what they are.

@Mariah I think it ultimately hurts both. So long as we are hurting nobody else, it would be better if we all could be respected for being who we honestly feel we are inside. The external plumbing we;re born with is not that important. Who we truly are is important.

I have thought about this alot.

I think it results from 1) misogyny/discrimination against “the feminine”: this is why feminine gay men (you know, the ones that get called “faggots” and “sissies” and “pansies” because they are visibly not-masculine) and transgendered women face the highest degree of violence out of all gender non-conforming people

and 2) remnants of second wave feminist thought (i.e., it’s ok for women/female-assigned people perceived as women to act in ways thought of as masculine) within a society which is still misogynistic, sexist and patriarchal.