Victoria Pendleton

I don't even think it's the media's fault, necessarily, or exclusively. Little girls are encouraged from every angle to carefully construct, and then to value, their femininity above all other virtues. It doesn't matter if they're brainy, or sporty, or musical: everything available to them is branded as pink, and sparkly, and princessy, and girly. When I was a kid you could at least be a tomboy; I'm not sure that they even exist anymore. Now it's all wee girls with playboy pencil cases. Who's really surprised when young women turn out to care so intensely, and so exclusively, about the way they look? The world does, too.

And god yes, this is right. I was a very conventional little girl in many ways - did all the riding bikes and falling out of trees, but also tried very hard just to fit in, and have blonde hair and a pink Barbie doll like everyone else. It took me years to deconstruct and reconstruct my femininity once I realized it didn't fit.

(There was an article about tomboys in the Guardian (where else?) a while back. Apparently they are a dying breed.)

And why are femininity and masculinity so important anyway? You know, the worst possible insults are gender-based - calling a man unmanly; accusing a woman of being masculine, etc. Why? (I have my own theories, but I want to know what everyone else thinks.)