where did the term tom boy come from
Tomboy Tomboy, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), "has been connected with connotations of rudeness and impropriety" throughout its use.[3] The OED dates the first use of the term to 1592,[3] but an earlier use is recorded in Ralph Roister Doister, which is believed to date from 1553, and was published in 1567. In nineteenth-century American culture, the usage of the word "tomboy" came to refer to a specific code of conduct that permitted young girls to exercise, wear "sensible clothing", and to eat a "wholesome diet". Because of the emphasis on a healthier lifestyle, tomboyism quickly grew in popularity during this time period as an alternative to the dominant feminine code of conduct that had limited women's physical movement.[4] In her 1898 book Women and Economics, feminist writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman lauds the health benefits of being a tomboy as well as the freedom for gender exploration: "not feminine till it is time to be".[5] Joseph Lee, a playground advocate, believed the tomboy phase crucial to physical development between the ages of eight and thirteen in 1915.[6] Tomboyism remained popular through World War I and World War II in society, literature, and then film.