英語暢談青春文化50主題 12 Tomboys 中性美女

Tomboys

A:Some of my girlfriends have an unusual style. They have short hair, they only wear T-shirts, jeans, and tennis shoes, and they never wear makeup. I think if I didn’t know them I wouldn’t be able to tell that they were girls!

B:There are a lot of girls like that, but I think they’re still really cute. Their style has a nice casual and confident feeling; it looks very natural.

A:Some of them even talk different than other girls; their voices are kind of throaty, low alto quality rather than high pitched.

photo：Li Yuchun

B:There are definitely girls who project a more masculine attitude. One good example of this kind of “tomboy”is the 2005 Super Girl contest winner, Li Yuchun. To tell you the truth, the first time I saw her on TV, I couldn’t tell she was a girl, but the more I watched the more I liked her style. By the end, I was a dedicated fan.

A:That’s true, Li Yuchun has tons of fans even though she doesn’t fit the traditional Chinese ideal of female beauty. Tomboys like her defy the idea that women have to be gentle, tender, sweet, and cute in order to be pretty.

B:Tomboys can be graceful and feminine, too, though—it’s just a different way of expressing yourself. Some people think girls with a more androgynous style are just sloppy or lazy, but many of them care just as much about their appearance as other girls. Also, just because she’s a tomboy doesn’t mean a girl isn’t well-mannered or polite.

A:I think that this trend toward a more androgynous style for women doesn’t just reflect the change of beauty standards and changing fashion trends, it’s also an expression of individuality.

B:You could even say that tomboys are an example of the independence and strength of modern women.

A:I think so. This more androgynous form of beauty is really in style these days; fashion designers have started coming out with more androgynous clothes and accessories, and it’s becoming a hot trend.

B：But even though this trend is becoming more and more popular, sometimes people make assumptions about other people’s personalities based on the type of clothes they wear, but in my experience tomboys aren’t any different from girls with a more traditionally feminine style. You can be down to earth, outgoing and attractive to the opposite sex regardless of whether you wouldn’t dream of wearing a skirt or you wear a skirt every day.

A:Yeah, in my opinon it’s great that girls these days have more freedom to dress however they want and still look cool.