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Nathalie

"Developing One's refinement"

My name is Nathalie. I am 37 years old and I am French. I’ve worked as a Computer Graphics Artist for the advertising and printing sectors for nearly 15 years. I was always passionate about computer graphics and you will see in the testimony below how difficult it is sometimes to assert oneself in our society when you want to pursue a childhood dream and when you don’t follow the way our teachers would have liked us to take.

If I go back to my early childhood – by stepping back quite a bit – I can say that the education I received was somewhat restrictive, in the sense that I was not often allowed to set about big things.

I come from a rather modest family and I lived in an average size city, where everyone knows everyone and where rumours spread very quickly. My mother’s ambition, who raised me alone when I was 10 years old, was that I follow in her professional footsteps, that is to say to work as a civil servant and have job security. But my objectives were different and a lot of events, some that I provoked, played in my favour.

To help you understand me better: I was born 14 years after my eldest sister and 7 years after my middle sister… Needless to say that my parents were rather expecting a boy as a third child! I was the belated child of a couple tired of living together so I was raised as a boy as it was their dearest desire. I have to say that during my early childhood, it had certain advantages, because it conferred me a certain strength that gave me rights that some girls did not have. Thus, I became the best marble player at school and I was proudly pocketing the victories with my head high. I preferred car rallies to dolls and rags. I was quite the daredevil because I was very close to my father and I followed his trail. I kept a few pictures from that time, and sometimes I start laughing when looking at them, I can hardly recognize myself!

When my father passed away (I was 10 years old), I faced a very difficult time, and in my family I was confronted to a majority of women who wanted me to follows ways other than the ones I wished. My father raised me with values of courage, a taste for risk or the will to undertake to succeed. And I found myself in front people quite different who wanted me to forget the 10 years of my life and who wanted to model me in their image. I was proud of my father and my rebel spirit was set in motion; all the decisions I took at that time guided my life until today from my choice of career, to my religion or my way of living. No one was able to go against that as I had acquired a certain self-confidence… and as others started to realize that doors were naturally opening in front of me.

Admittedly, these rather masculine values set me off in life, but I suffered a lot from my lack of “femininity” during my teenage years, as I felt rejected by my peers. I thought differently, I acted differently; I was attracted by soft and feminine images or by homosexuals… I could feel sensitivity and softness within me, but I dressed like a boy and my reasoning was that of a boy… There was quite a gap between who I really was and who I became through my education. Paradoxically, I was very much inspired by my homosexual friends to change my behaviours and to learn to show myself in a flattering light; I had a lot of fun with them and somewhere, I recognized myself in them: they were born as men but their genes were those of a woman, and as for me, I was born a woman, I felt very much a woman genetically but my education made me masculine.

The family’s hold was very strong for a long time and I had to create a shell around me to see the objectives I had set for myself be born. This shell might have made me even harsher, but it was a step to get to where I am today, particularly after I chose to study what suited me. This career I am currently in, saw a tremendous amount of the dormant feminine qualities in me re-emerge; some of these qualities, such as sensitivity, delicacy, intuition, understanding, are very much appreciated and even envied because they are difficult to acquire for the majority of men. But it is also a career in which you have to know how to sell your ideas, to exert a certain power to be heard. Besides, it is very complementary and very enriching to adapt according to the situation.

I am globally satisfied with my life; I have the career I’ve always wanted, even though I got it through a strong personality, I develop my self as a woman of her time, open to her environment and following the trends of mentalities, I accomplish my “job” as a mother (I have a 17 year old daughter), with as much consciousness as possible. I consider myself a modern woman who doesn’t deny the advantages brought by her education and who tries to make this world a more delicate one, while developing herself constantly to that effect.

Today, I am convinced that even though our traits are genetically inscribed, we can modify them. We are able to acquire qualities that are not necessarily ours at the beginning, and to play with them for our own well-being and that of the world surrounding us.

Our current world needs more refinement to develop ideas of peace and harmony. It’s not a utopian view to say that femininity (or rather the feminine values, because they don’t just concern women) is a necessary step in the future of humanity. You just have to believe in it very much and undertake actions going this way to see our environment change positively.

I hope that my personal testimony will prompt you to develop these feminine values that lay dormant in you… because, there is no doubt, they’re there and are waiting for you.

Nathalie