Girlhood and Bonsai Trees
Bonsai does not require genetically dwarfed trees but rather depends on growing small trees from regular stock and seeds. Bonsai uses cultivation techniques like pruning, root reduction, potting, defoliation, and grafting to produce small trees. [src]
Girls are treated like bonsai trees. They’re capable of as much as boys, but parents cut them down to size. It’s easy to grow a regular tree. it’s hard to grow a bonsai. This is what is meant by “it’s so hard to raise daughters.”
If you plant a bonsai tree in the grown and forego pruning and training, the tree will develop its full root system and begin growing to its full size. Bonsai trees are not a special species, instead they are full-size trees that are continually manipulated to remain small. [src]
It’s always possible to recover from femininity. Our DNA has not changed. Even after so many thousands of years of misogyny, it’s only the continual manipulation of men that holds us back. We are not broken, we are not dead, it is still possible to get roots into the ground and grow.