Our Fifth Grade Experiences....

[Androdyke]

and how they affect our daily lives as WBW....

Let's continue the topic here, since I'm not sure where else to do it. Please join in an share your experiences!

Underarm hair: I started getting underarm hair around fifth grade. I tried to keep it a secret but soon people in my family found out. I was so ashamed. One day I was in a car with my little brother and some neighborhood friends when he decided to be mean to me and blurted out: "------has hair growing in her armpits!". I, wanting to get revenge blurted out: "well, --------- wets the bed! When we got home we both got in trouble for telling "family secrets". (Isn't it ironic that a girl having armpit hair was on the same shame level as bed wetting?) Soon after that my mother took me into the bathroom and shaved off the hair so that "nobody could see it". Today, I don't shave as a rebellion against this "forced gender code femininity". I was hoping by the turn of the century that underarm hair would be reclaimed as "feminine" since it does grow there naturally. But alas, the gender code is even more enforced, where now women can't even have pubic hair....and be considered feminine and attractive. Women that choose to be their natural selves are discriminated against and it is all enforced by the gender police!

[Phoenix]

Kathy was the kind of mother who didn't believe in explaining things to her kids(her mom was the same way), so there were a lot of things I didn't know.

I didn't know that women grew hair or that we were expected to shave it off. I was teased horribly in school and my friend's mom finally had to explain about shaving and show me how to do it.

I found out about menstruation through reading, then had to correct Kathy's misconceptions when she tried to tell me about it at age 15. She's now in her late 50's(I think) and has never said the words penis or vagina, or given me a clear explanation of what happens to make women bleed. I found out for myself and had to explain everything to my brother as well.
My mom was always too embarassed to buy pads or tampons so I had to tell Kenny that I had started my period and he took me to buy my first menstrual products. He also took me to my first gyno appointment because my mom was too embarassed to be seen going into the gynecologist's office!

I didn't know how to 'fix' my hair because I was only allowed to wear it the way my mother styled it. During the big hair years of the 80's i was the only girl in my town who didn't know what hairspray was. Looking back, this was probably a blessing in disguise.

I didn't know how to put outfits together because i was only allowed to wear stuff she picked out. When I started wanting to wear stuff I liked I had to take it to school in my backpack and change at school.

Basically, I was teased a lot because I didn't understand social cues or expectations. I'm not sure if this was a conscious decision on the part of my parents or if they just figured I was smart enough to learn everything on my own.

I didn't know that women were supposed to have certain roles because my dad always did the housework as well as the yardwork and other things men were 'supposed' to do. I was never taught that women were supposed to flirt or be dependent on men or that men were superior to women.
Kenny taught me how to fix cars and paint and fish and cook and clean and do laundry. He always told me that the only person I could depend on was myself so had better learn to do everything. Oddly enough, he didn't teach my brother these skills.

At the time it seemed like the worst thing in the world, but now I'm glad I was never taught the 'right' way to do things.
I've had to learn about these things on my own and develop my own thoughts about sex, shaving, gender roles, etc.

I think that was why I didn't realize it was 'wrong' to be gay. i didn't hear the word lesbian until college and I didn't realize that people were homophobic. When I came out I was surprised that my parents were upset, because I didn't know that being a lesbian was considered different!

[Artemis]

I was what is called a late bloomer. I didnt start my period until I was 15 and three quarters. Remember in the old Prell commercials the slogan Flat to Fluffy? That descibed how my tits grew in the space of three months in my sophomore year. I went from nothing to the 32D that I am currently. This is a traumatizing experience in the fact that I didn't mature with the other girls and therefore was totally unequipped to deal with the adult attention I started to receive and I also knew I was lesbian. THAT happened in the fifth grade.

My first erotic experiences were with a girl named Susie Baugh. I consider her my first girlfriend ever. I was in the 5th grade, she was in the 4th but definitely more mature than me! She was already developing at that point and would take her shirt off to wash her hair in the kitchen sink when her parents werent around. Then she'd make us coffee. I always thought of coffee as a grown up drink and felt we were getting away with something and felt quite grownup with her. We got away with a lot! She definitely wanted to explore her female body and she wanted my help doing it. I obliged, of course, but got freaked out too sometimes. She was really fast for me, and I would get scared. I was so in love with her.

[ohsnap]

This thread caught my eye because I have a daughter in fifth grade. My fifth grade was not particularly memorable, except that I loved my teacher Mrs. Thorpe. She challenged me and helped me feel competent. I am lucky that I am able to send my daughter to a Montessori private school where her individuality is cherished. She is entering puberty earlier than her classmates and we talk about it regularly. She is concerned about being different from her peers but luckily she has made very good friends at this school, girls and one boy. Her recent school conference was encouraging; her (female) teacher told me she is a strong girl, stands up for herself, and will be a strong, confident woman. She is only ten, but I hope that keeping her in this environment as long as possible will aid her in being that strong womon.

[Queen]

Fifth grade is when I became a freak, I started my period in 4th grade at the age of nine and by fifth grade I was 5'6" with a C cup. So I was the tallest kid in my grade, had big boobs, and loooong legs, could outrun all the boys, won every stupid fight I got in, and excelled at all sports. Naturally this made the kids and teachers decide I was fair game for every sort of derision they could come up with, nothing like letting me know that I was responsible for the behaviors of grown men who couldn't control themselves. Grade school fucking sucked.

[Androdyke]

Queen, tell us more. Were you sexually harassed and then blamed for it?

[Queen]

[AngelFairy]

I didn't have to deal with the issue until 7-8th grade but I also felt totally unprepared to deal with unwanted attention from men & boys....It probably tool me until my mid-20s, trying different things at different times before i could consistently respond in ways that felt powerful, although i do remember telling a man at church i was not responsible for boys/men's sin of lust (like he was trying to put onto me).

In fifth grade I had an older friend 4or 5 years older) who was my best friend and I remember being facinated by her older-ness, her phsysical & other types of maturity. I frequently came up against the socially powerful peers & had alot of conflict & even changed schools, which was fine because i felt my teacher spoke to kids in hurtful & insulting ways too, so it was a good thing to get out of that environment.

[Tae]

i got armpit hair in fifth grade and my mum wouldn't let me shave it. looking back i think she saw shaving as a sort of loss of innocence and wanted me to still be a little kid - which i was, i was just a little kid entering puberty.

at any rate i got harassed about it at school and shamed for being hairy... i don't shave any more but i was super self conscious about it for a long time.

i got my first period in grade six and it was actually a pretty positive experience. i understood what it meant when i found blood in my underwear and I was excited to go to school the next day and tell my friends. a few of them had gotten it before me and a few were still waiting - it was a cool thing, we felt very grown up.

i think i'm really lucky that there wasn't a lot of shame surrounding it, though until i was eighteen i was absolutely MORTIFIED when i had to buy pads or tampons. i would make sure to buy lots of things and kind of hide them in between the items when i checked out... god forbid anyone knew an eighteen year old menstruated

[pocketwitch]

I hope no one minds if I join the conversation; I haven't posted in a long time but this topic resonates with me right now. I had my first period in fourth grade, but it wasn't like I thought it would be and I hid my underwear. I had a couple more periods, not regularly, and figured out what was going on early in fifth grade. I told my best friend, she told two boys, and they told the rest of the class. It became quite the to-do. Whenever it was time to go to the restroom--or, Goddess help me, I needed ask to go--all the kids would giggle. Andy and John, the two boys my best friend told, were particularly cruel after school for a while. They wouldn't let me stand on their driveway because I "might bleed on it." My fifth grade teacher and my parents consulted, and for the rest of the year, anytime I wanted to go to the restroom I asked my teachers for the "papers to take to the office" and she would give me a fake stack of paperwork. I used the teachers' restroom.

The whole horrible period affair was made worse by the fact that although I am was very small for my age, I developed breasts early. I was accused by boys of stuffing my bra. I also was reading my way through the young adult section of the library in fifth grade, and happened upon Judy Blume's book Forever, and thus began my sexual education. I was engrossed in the book, and not knowing any better, I took it to school. There was a scene in the book in which a girl and her boyfriend are intimate with one another, and the boyfriend exclaims something that completely confused me. Where, I wondered, was he going? And why was "coming" spelled wrong? So, I asked my teacher. My parents were called, and my library books were watched closely. Then, when my teacher intercepted a note from a boy at school saying "will you frinch me," it was decided that I was promiscuous. And that is a label that never went away, at least not for my parents, and caused me a whole lot of pain and confusion around being a girl.

My fifth grade teacher gave me a "special project" of planning the outdoor classroom for the school to distract me from--I don't really know. The boy who sent me the kissing note was never punished, and the boys who teased me weren't talked to either. The adults in my world constantly reinforced that the teasing, the sexual attention, was my fault. A lot was changing in my body, and I was becoming aware of sex, but every time I tried to process these changes by reading, sharing, or asking questions, I was made to feel shamed. It got worse as I got older, especially between my mother and I. As a result, I closed myself off and went through my adolescence constantly at odds with my gender and sexuality without much support. That's the story for many of us, I think.

I like to think that my daughter will not have to deal with so much shame around growing up a girl. I've opened communication lines early, so that she doesn't feel like talking to me about bodies, sexuality, and gender expectations is a huge, embarrassing ordeal. And, you know, my girl is growing up surrounded by fest womyn, and that sure does help.