Misfit and Misbehaving
by Elouise
It’s the early 1950s. I’m about 11 years old. I’ve just taken my assigned seat in my 6th grade classroom at a private church school. I look around the room and it hits me in the eyes.
All but three girls are wearing matching white skirts with a bold flower pattern around the hem of each skirt. The flower pattern is in five rainbow colors with not one, but two skirts in each color. My two best girlfriends are wearing blue flowered skirts.
Our teacher, clearly caught off guard, says there must have been a fire sale on this particular pattern. The skirts are homemade. Obviously this was a planned event.
I’m mortified. Why didn’t I know about this? My mother is one of the best seamstresses around, and could have whipped one up for me. I try to make it OK in my mind. Especially since only three girls in the class aren’t wearing the uniform. The other two are the least popular girls in the class. Surely there was a mistake.
My two best girlfriends try to make it OK. I wasn’t left out because they didn’t like me. It was because the club had decided there could only be pairs, and I was the odd girl out. Besides, I was at least a year younger than they.
Which wasn’t the full story. Along with the other two misfits, I was a scholarship student. My parents couldn’t afford to pay tuition. It didn’t matter that I was bright, intelligent, interesting, faithful, truthful or any of that.
Things got worse during recess. The club had designated certain parts of the public park (a lovely downtown square in Savannah, Georgia) as their special places. They had rules about who could play with whom during the first part of recess, and where they would meet for regular club meetings during recess.
The following day was a ‘regular’ day which meant the club didn’t wear skirt uniforms to class. My friends talked the club into letting me join as a substitute club member. I would have to have a blue-flowered skirt. However, I could take part in activities in the park only if one of my two friends was absent that day. And I would have to vote the way my friend would have voted. That way the voting wouldn’t be off-balance.
Long story short: My mother agreed to make a skirt, but couldn’t find the same flower pattern. I wore my painfully obvious substitute skirt once or twice before the club disbanded.
In the end, this episode wasn’t about how smart, friendly or truthful I was. It was about white money and white family history. Which is to say the white Protestant pecking order and the subservient pedigree of white hens.
What I now understand:
- It’s important to divide white women from each other as early as possible.
- This will serve the goals of white male supremacy.
- The tactics of divide and conquer are cheap, easy and effective in almost any setting.
Tomorrow is the beginning of Women’s History Month. I wonder how willing I am to refuse being divided in order to change history?
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 28 February 2018
1950s young teen fashion images found at pinterest.com
What a sad story. It’s a pity for me to ‘like’ it, but you know what I mean.
Girls are so often divisive, less, I hope, than they used to be. I’ve always taught my daughter to try to get along with others, and that discretion counts for a lot, in a mean school.
Sorry, angel. If it’s any comfort, there are legions of children, boys and girls, caught out by idiotic ‘rules’.
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Yes, I do know what you mean. Today I’m grateful for tools to understand that this about much more than my being part of the ‘club.’ We’re almost like pawns in our early years. Though some of us are blessed by a healthy stubborn streak that refuses to pretend everything is fine when it clearly is not! I’d much rather be in that club. With you, of course! 🙂
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In Australia almost all schools have uniforms. It is generally agreed that this removes one obvious area where the students from wealthy homes cannot be seen as ‘better’ than the rest.
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Yes, I agree. In that context, Roman Catholic students wore uniforms–such as they were for the girls/young women. Our school was proudly Protestant. Not given to popish things or customs. Too bad.
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Today, the Protestant/Roman Catholic divide is not very noticeable,
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My three billy’s all went to catholic schools, all wore uniforms, all turned out well,
Well with a father like me to do all their homework for them how could they not who was the 🐰
🐻
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And with a father like you
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🙂
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Snob 😒 😜 😒 😜 😒 😜
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hmmm…about that last bit there at the end….perhaps you were the cat’s meow? Or is it a bunny rabbit….?
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It’s a bunny rabbit, I was the bunny 😦
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Okay. Though I’m not sure what you mean. 🤔
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It;s an Australianism for the clown caught with the short end of the stick. 🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇
Just to confuse you some more 🐩🕊🕊🕊🕊 🐏
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Ask John Poal , he’d probably explain it better than I can 🐇🐇
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As John said, Australian schools have uniforms, but it doesn’t stop this kind of behaviour all together. I made a passing reference to it in my memoir, how, particularly in primary school, and particularly with the girls, friendship networks can be capricious. One moment you are “in” and next you are “out” and everyone is ganging up on you. I spent my sixth class year in the library during every recess, even going on to win a special award for helping the teacher. On the upside, I did learn to be happy with my own company and that has stood me well over the years.
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Thanks for your comment, Gwen. I love your resort to the library! I had one semester when that became my refuge. I was a volunteer library assistant in the 8th grade, which got me out of an uncomfortable gym class! When I look back on the experience I describe in the post, I see it differently today than I did back then, which means it really wasn’t about me. In that situation, it was about who was privileged and who was not (socially and economically). Better, which girls get to wear special clothes and set the rules for the playground, and which girls do not. As for being happy with ‘your own company,’ I applaud you! You chose well.
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Yes, my thoughts were also around poverty, but I decided to skirt that. Where I grew up, we were all poor. It was just a matter of degrees. Those who didn’t have much could look down on those who had less. But children learn that behaviour at home, and bring it in to the classroom. My surviving schoolmates are surprised to be reminded of those days.
I still cringe when I think of the year when “leather” clothing was a fad ( a few years later). I had none for the annual school dance, and even if I did, my Rubenesque figure would have looked ridiculous in their figure-hugging lines – but oh! How left out did I feel.
More importantly, I still have foot problems to this day, on account of wearing everyone else’s second hand shoes. I should have had long straight toes, but alas!
We didn’t have a white/black issue of privilege, at least not where I lived, so I can’t speak to that American experience. It must have been very tough for all concerned.
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Thanks for these comments and memories. You’re so correct. We take cues from our parents/caretakers, and always seem to find a way of differentiating between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ As for the leather look, I never could quite get it. It’s lovely to sit on, I suppose….
Growing up in the South was an education in itself. Silent and no-so-silent indoctrination says it better. When we moved from California to Savannah, Georgia when I was about 7, I didn’t have a clue what the Deep South would be like. My shame about having more and better than my 1/2-mile away neighbors (not then perceived as neighbors) was huge because disparities were patently visible all the time. I understand from news analysis that we’re going backwards after the promise of forward progress in the 1960s and 70s.
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What memories this brings back. I wasn’t one of the popular kids, but at least there were other excluded ones who were much better friends to me than the fickle, popular girls were to their own.
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Yes! I relate to your comment about who often makes better friends. It’s sad when everything becomes a competition. I fear many of our young girls struggle with this today. Especially in this age of instant access via social media and the constant pressure of having to stand out (not just measure up). Thanks, Candice.
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The discussion caused me to dig out my book and recall exactly what I wrote on this topic. It covers several paragraphs, which include “it was a godsend to find some special friendships to carry me through those turbulent years of infants and primary school”. Ultimately though, I address the issue that we all had to look out for ourselves, no one was coming to save us from this morass. This female bullying was a form of survival of the fittest.It’s a classic divide and conquer approach. We would have done much better to band together and face “whatever” as a united front.
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Yes!!!! Absolutely right on target. Thanks for digging around and sending this quote. Your last line is painfully true. I relate bigtime, and applaud women in the thick of it who stand up for each other–not just for themselves.
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[…] was a little girl Elouise was sent to school in the wrong dress and this caused her to be a misfit. You can read here. This caused Gwen, Fran and Candice to jump in. I love it when my friends have these little chats. […]
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As a Jesuit grammar school boy, I, too was a scholarship student. My Mum made all our clothes, even embroidering the badges on our blazers. We were poorer than most in post-war Britain. I don’t remember any bullying.
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Thanks, Derrick. Your Mum was a busy lady! You’re fortunate not to have memories of bullying. I know boys bully because I’ve seen it. However, it seems boys aren’t as prone to female bullying, which has its own ways and means of getting to the top. Which means settling for a version of ‘the top’ that isn’t really what it seems because it requires all kinds of subservience to men at the top. Our current administration (POTUS) is a sad case in point.
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One of our daughters, Petra, experienced ‘the club’ of girls when she was in second grade. She was a ‘member’ for about a week and then booted out. We had long talks about it and I managed to help her understand the shenanigans that were going on.
Soon Petra and Kate became friends. Years later, I learned from Kate’s mother that Kate had been booted out of ‘the club’ not long after Petra. Kate’s mother said it took Kate a very long time to ‘get over it’.
For the past four years, Petra, who is now in her 30s, has been captain of a women’s sports team. Many long-term players have retired. Now most of the players are in their mid-teens and come from long distances to train and play in this particular team. The parents often say they most value the way Petra is so supportive and inclusive of all the players regardless of their ability.
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Petra had/has a wise mother! Thanks, Peggy, for this wonderful comment and true story.
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I felt very lucky and relieved that she understood at such a young age.
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We will always have the need to belong…at the cost of excluding. Touching, important post.
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Thank you kindly for this comment. Your statement underscores the importance of knowing when to say No to power plays. There aren’t always easy or even safe decisions. On the whole, I believe we’re called to ‘belong’ with the excluded. Easier said than done.
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when I was younger, I viewed uniforms as just that, trying to conform everyone to be the same cookie cutter image….it was only later that I realized it would indeed make poor children and rich children equal. the joys of aging, seeing through older and wiser eyes ❤ sad story, I was left out a lot but grew up to learn to stand tall in my differences ❤ ❤ ❤ and as such, embrace my crazy weird and fun self, ha 🙂
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Your crazy weird and fun self is strong and beautiful! 🙂 Being left out as a young child is a strange kind of death. I kept reminding myself I could play the piano better than any of them! But it still smarted.
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