LOLA

When I was in first grade, the principle announced over the intercom that girls no longer had to wear dresses to school.  I jumped out of my seat and starting dancing in circles and hollering and pumping my arms in the air.  I got into trouble, which was unusual for me at that time, but I didn’t care.

I didn’t wear a dress to school again until high school.  I clearly remember the day I decided to be girly at school because, although I was a popular kid, I was teased for wearing a dress.  The kids sang “Lola” at me all day long, particularly the following two stanzas of the song:

1. Well, I’m not dumb but I can’t understand
   Why she walked like a woman but talked like a man
   Oh my Lola
   La-la-la-la Lola
   La-la-la-la Lola
2. Girls will be boys and boys will be girls
   It’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world, except for Lola
   La-la-la-la Lola

In retrospect, the teasing and taunting was inside out and made no sense. At the time I was mortified and didn’t wear a dress again for years. I was bullied for dressing like a girl, even though I was a girl.  Most of the people who tormented me that day were the bullies who beat up the gays, taunted the lesbians, and had a trans person dared share space with any of them would have been killed.  And yet, there they were, bullying me because I wore a dress.  I was a girl, yes, but they wanted me to fit what they expected me to be, what they had learned to accept was me, a boyish girl.  Not a lesbian.  Not a trans person.  And damn it, I had better not deviate.

After college I landed a corporate job as a copywriter for an in-house marketing and advertising department.  It was the late 80s.  One day about a month after I started working there, the creative director, my boss, called me into his office to have a talk.

My boss, Jim, seemed uncomfortable in his chair, his desk a buffer between the two of us. “The higher ups want me to talk to you about the way you dress.  I don’t have a problem with it, but the big guys have taken notice of you.  They want you to dress more…ummm…I don’t know how to say this. Umm…professional.”  He shifted in his chair.

“What exactly does more professional mean?” I asked.  My heart was beating hard in my chest and I’m sure my cheeks were reddening.  I wore nice slacks, button up shirts, and suit jackets to work.  I was professional.  I knew what Jim meant, though, and I wanted to hear him say it out loud.

“Could you wear dresses to work? And maybe some make-up?”  Jim tried making eye contact but he couldn’t maintain it.  He was embarrassed.

“Let me ask you something, Jim,” I said as calmly as I could.  “Has this company been sued for sexism?”

Jim’s face lit up.  “Why, yes.  As a matter of fact, we’re being sued now.  The women in sales have a lawsuit because they were asked to wear their skirts a certain length, just above the knees I think.”

I leaned forward and placed by elbows on Jim’s desk.  “Okay then, tell the big guys once that lawsuit is settled, I am more than willing to listen to their complaints about the way I dress.”

Jim smiled.  “Agreed,” he said, and I never heard another word about it.