I had this realisation the other day when I was reapplying my lip gloss. Everything I own right now is in pink one way or another; I had pink eye shadow with matching glitter on, my iPhone is pink with my phone case covered in a bunny with her comically large pink strawberry, and I was reapplying my lip gloss (Laneige Glaze Craze in Strawberry Spinkle) with my My Melody mirror, the water bottle that is sitting in my bag is also pink. When did this transformation of pink happen? I don’t remember going out and seeking for pink in my everyday objects, and pink was never my favourite colour. Whenever people ask me about my favourite colour, my go-to answer has always been something like ‘I don't know, blue maybe?’, ‘I guess purple is pretty cool,’ or the classic ‘I don’t have a favourite colour.’

I believe a lot of people would agree if I said femininity is weird. Everyone defines their idea of femininity differently, and there isn’t a single definition of our experience of it. Femininity is weird to me, I can’t seem to grasp it correctly. I wouldn’t call myself a ‘tomboy’. Sure, I have interests that are traditionally classified as ‘boyish’. I like comic books a little too much, I went through a Tomica and Hot Wheels phase, and one of my favourite pastimes as a kid was watching my cousin and dad play Call of Duty or Resident Evil. I’ve always rejected femininity. Back in kindergarten, I had this classmate who would bring temporary tattoos for us to share. He had two bags of them: one for boys and the other for girls. I faintly remember fighting him about it, and after a while, he let me pick something from the boys’ temporary tattoos, because I didn’t want a Barbie tattoo or a Hello Kitty one; what I wanted was a Spider-Man one or a Finding Nemo one. And whenever the teacher would call out for the boys to carry the chairs or other heavy objects, I hated it. I have always been very stubborn, so I would rush in and help because I didn’t want to be a girl. I wanted to prove that I can do anything that boys can, and I definitely did not want to be labelled as ‘a girl’. Maybe it’s the internalised misogyny in me speaking, but being called ‘Miss’, or ‘that girl’ by customers in store ick me so much that I asked my manager to add ‘she/they’ on my name badge. I don’t mind using ‘she/her’, but when someone addresses me as ‘girl’, ‘lady’ or something along those lines, it feels off to me. I don’t feel like I am a girl.

Being a girl is tricky. I feel like there is a manual for it somewhere, and my copy of How to be a Girl 101 somehow got lost in the mail when I started puberty. And all of a sudden, everyone around me started to look like a real girl, while I was stuck in this state of awkwardness. I wanted to be a ‘real girl’ so bad, but I never knew how. The husk of meat I reside in feels off. Yet, I don’t have the words to describe it other than it being my own insecurities from my teenage years, that I believe the notion that I could never fit in and wearing makeup or acting a certain way won’t change the fact that I feel like an outsider. Still, I often feel like I am wearing the skin, and I’m this deformed creature inside pretending I understand how to be ‘a real girl’. So, maybe the pink I own are a distraction from my disguise, but that doesn’t sound right to me.

I started going to the gym in recent years, trying to take better care of myself. I have a My Melody coin pouch as well as a kitten plushie hanging on my gym bag. I tried to make my gym wear as feminine as possible, I want to get a full set of pastel coloured sportswear or a gym skirt. I would jokingly say this is to fight against the traditionally masculine gym space, that’s why I want all of my gym wear to be traditionally feminine. Maybe it wasn’t as much of a joke as I made myself believe it to be. What if me choosing pink over other colours is just my silent protest against the patriarchy?

Here I am rambling, giving myself excuses upon excuses on why I started getting more pink in my life. Still refusing to admit the slight possibility that I might actually like pink now. It feels almost embarrassing to admit that there is a chance that I might like the colour now, and I am starting to enjoy femininity. The funny thing is, a lot of people who rejected femininity in their teens are finding their way back to seeing the joy in it. Having to reprogram oneself into understanding and recognising the internalised misogyny that has been conditioned into ourselves is so much more difficult than I imagined. All these years I spent rejecting being feminine, I have begun to find joy in playing with makeup, going to cute cafe dates with my friends and most importantly, liking the colour pink. From rejecting the colour pink, I have somehow found my way back to femininity.