Redefining realness: My path to womanhood, identity, love, & so much more

Mock repeatedly mentions her hair throughout the narrative. As an aspect of her appearance, she most commonly associates her hair with womanhood and often explicitly refers to her long hair or long hair in general as denoting girl/womanhood. As a child, she grows her hair long and is often mistaken for a girl as a result, like when she pretends to be Keisha: “My hair, the only mark of my girlhood, was being touched in a way I had never been before” (78). Mock explicitly relates her long hair to her girlhood, and, in this case, to the only evidence of her girlhood. This is problematic because it implies that girlhood or womanhood is intrinsically related to having long hair. This association simultaneously renders womanhood as linked to appearance and also to external physicality; that is, that womanhood is an externalized identity, presumably appropriated for the benefit of the male gaze.

However, Mock also relates her hair to her blackness, as she believes that her hair is representative of her identity as a black woman. She talks about how her hair rendered her blackness visible, especially when she moved back to Hawaii: “That didn’t erase the unease I felt when the kids in the housing complex took note of our darkness and kinky hair” (96). Although Mock’s long hair is a source of pride throughout the narrative, as she feels it to be indicative of her girlhood, Mock also identifies conflicting feelings regarding her hair, as she feels it discloses her blackness. She repeatedly mentions being jealous of Wendi’s hair, which is much straighter than her own, as though this externalized portion of her identity makes her uncomfortable. It is interesting, therefore, that Mock explicitly relates both her blackness and her womanhood to hair while also presenting herself as slightly conflicted due to the nature of her hair. She seems very proud of its length but not necessarily of its curl, although she eventually grows to appreciate it. Within this context, it would appear that Mock would prefer to be visibly female without necessarily being visibly black, seemingly emphasizing her identity as female over her identity as black.

Visibility is incredibly important to Mock throughout the narrative. Much like her emphasis on secrets versus the truth, Mock oscillates between heightened and obscured visibility throughout the narrative. She repeatedly emphasizes that she wants people to see her for who she truly is, although she admits that she is afraid that they will reject her once they do see her, which is part of her social positionality. Mock falls in love with Aaron primarily because she feels like he sees her for who she truly is: “He saw beyond the pretty, which I had relied on during many first meetings with guys, aiming to remain a mystery, to remain unseen because being pretty invisible allowed me safety. His cocked brow signaled that he wouldn’t be afraid to know the real me” (4). Mock uses her appearance to mask her truth and her identity, playing with the idea of being seen. In reality, she uses her appearance to obfuscate the aspects of her past that she does not want to have to relive and to make herself less vulnerable. After all, being seen engenders a kind of responsibility as it holds her accountable to truth. More than anything, Mock wants to be seen for who she really is, playing with words associated with visibility to communicate this desire.

Throughout the narrative, Mock presents the prevalence of the gender binary within Western (and especially American) society. The gender binary is the bifurcation of gender within society: that is, the belief that gender exists on two opposing poles—male and female. In contrast, opponents of the gender binary system often argue that gender exists on a spectrum, similar to although in no way predicated by the spectrum of sexuality. Within the gender binary system, masculinity is often noted as being real while femininity is constructed as artificial, fake, and something that can be purchased: “It was a balancing act to express my femininity in a world that is hostile toward it and frames femininity as artifice and fake, in opposition to masculinity, which often represents ‘realness’” (124). While Mock often acknowledges these problematic and discriminatory biases concerning the gender binary, she also appropriates some of the gender binary’s harmful ideas concerning womanhood.

When she talks about her adolescence, wherein she began transitioning into girlhood, she associates it with physical items that can be purchased:“I draped the black lanyard around my neck with a single green plastic balm dangling. I proudly dangled my girlhood in all its fruitiness. It cost only $2.99” (124). Mock explicitly and problematically connects her girlhood to Lip Smackers’ green lip balm, associating girlhood and womanhood as something that can be purchased. Mock thereby construes womanhood as a commodity, much in the same way that she commodifies her female body later on. This commodification demonstrates Mock’s own appropriation of the very system that oppresses and marginalizes her and many others. The words that Mock uses show how difficult it is to extricate oneself from these systems of power: even as Mock works to fight against the systemic injustices inherent within the gender binary, she unconsciously appropriates the same language she attempts to work against.