Unlikely epiphany

Unfortunately, I don't quite have the fantastic moustache

I got given a “man card”.

There’s a possibility that you don’t know what a “man card” is. A few of my friends, male and female give me some very funny looks when I refer to my “man card” and the “man points” that least to its confiscation or bestowment.

For those of you who don’t know a “man card” is automatically owned by all guys as representations of their manliness. It isn’t actually a card (although we managed to convince someone once that we actually all had plastic cards). It is a symbol, but one that can, however, be taken away if the “owner” performs an especially “girly” act and the owner of said confiscated card must “earn back” their man card by collecting a large amount of “man points” for doing particularly stupid/ chauvinist/ daring things.

Of course, it’s a light-hearted concept really and doesn’t actually mean anything, or much anyway. Just a bit of banter between guys. But I felt proud when some lads declared at some point last year that I had indeed earned the right to a “man card”.

I can’t even remember what I did. I’m not an especially hard drinker, I don’t chat up amazingly good-looking girls (or any girls for that matter) and I hadn’t climbed anything much whilst under the influence – all things guaranteed to earn you “man points”.

But I’ll admit that I was used to banter. For the last five years of my life, my friends at home have consisted of eight boys who, however lovely, were still guys. Instead of girly sleepovers, I’d camp out in a field climbing trees, burning things and listening to them talk about video games, guitars and girls. Not that I minded, of course, I was never really into the things the girls at my school were into and this was more my sort of thing. But it did mean that when I arrived at university, I was better prepared to take, and participate in the banter that came with some guys, especially those in the sports teams.

And so I gained my “man card”. I have lost it a few times – clearly I am only female – but I’ve always earned it back.

So I came back home for the summer and almost immediately headed off to meet my guys at the pub. I was eager to tell them all about university – but most of all about my “man card”. They’d probably be jealous they hadn’t thought of the concept, I’d thought.

I got there, only to have them tell me I’d become too feminine.

They didn’t like it. I happened to be wearing a dress that day that was “too short” and “too low-cut”. They sounded like my mother. What was really ironic though, was that it was the dress that I’d worn when earning my man card back. At uni, it hadn’t mattered what I’d worn, I’d still be one of the lads.

I’m not going to lie, this upset me: ever since I’ve always taken care to wear my tomboy clothes when I’m around them – but I shouldn’t have to.

It is getting better. They’ve given me a “man name” now (Mufasa in case you’re interested – apparently not thinking of ‘The Lion King’; I decided not to ask) and are happy to banter on without checking their arguments “because there’s a girl in the room/ caravan/ field”. My honorary manhood is back.

But it made me think. I’ve realised that at university, my so-called “man card” isn’t actually anything much to do with my masculinity. What it means is that I belong. I’m part of the club: part of the clique, regardless of gender distinctions.

And that’s what I really love.

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