something i think that's interesting about nat's gender presentation and her approach toward the other girls is that it is a bit "not like other girls," but i don't know if i agree that it's "not like other girls" in an intentionally diminishing way.
one thing about being raised poor is that it, like the myriad of other ways you can be subjugated/oppressed, is something that -takes- your gender too, especially in terms of femininity. if you go to school smelling like smoke because your dad hotboxed you in the car, your footing in the gender box that society prefers (clean, put-together, in some ways innocent) is impacted. if your clothes are ripped and stained and you don't have many of them, this can become a struggle too. you're not like other girls because you literally are not like other girls, and it's even possible that you're experiencing the punishment not just from shitty boys but also your girl peers-- it's just how it goes.
and so in the case of nat, it kind of makes sense to me? if you're already outside the box of "girl" in the way that the world would prefer, it becomes a protective strategy to simply lean into that distance. (more on this in a sec.)
as an example, i do think it's interesting that taissa's go-to for nat when they were arguing over allie was, "you smell like a wino. get your shit together." the term wino is pretty often associated with homelessness or being drunk in the streets, so the comment isn't just a nod toward what might be going on with nat drinking-wise but also a pretty charged statement in relation to her class status. this sort of dynamic carries into the adult timeline too, where it's definitely felt through various interactions that shauna and tai look down at nat in different ways. (and don't get me wrong, it's quite complicated, especially in terms of her dynamic with tai and the tumultuous rehab support there.)
all the same, i think this whole class impact on gender thing continues on with respect to nat's sexuality and how this is commented on by other characters too (re: jackie and tai). the reason this feels like another class thing is that "chastity" has its roots in women as material objects with worth rooted in a perceived "purity." chastity is naturally going to be more often surveilled and prioritized in richer families who have the time/energy to keep an eye on their children. meanwhile, poorer families might not have the resources to surveil children in the same way (even if a parent, like nat's dad, clearly wants to control this aspect). so nat's even having had sexual experiences can be a bit of a nod to her class-- the fact that she was able to be in spaces where this was possible, to disappear into those relationships, even at a younger age, can speak to this.
but yeah, when you do look at nat, you see that she primarily has relationships with men. her younger friends, kevyn and rich. her connection with travis. her connection with ben. there's probably a level of internalized misogyny there, but i think it's also interestingly placed at odds with nat's protectiveness over womanhood: when she has her comeback to travis after he makes sexist comments about her having sexual experience; when ben checks out from shauna's delivery and nat rushes to her side to hold her hand and tell her that women have been having babies for since the dawn of time; even when nat takes up the gun after her dad throws her mom to the ground.
what i'm saying here is that nat is actually often moving toward women-- her taking lisa under her wing, her teaching gen to hunt, her making way for lottie in the bath, her reassuring shauna, even her reaching out to work with hannah. when she says marishauna's beef is "dumb girl shit," it does grate because it's a diminishing thing to say about a real dynamic that is causing problems in the group, and not necessarily to defend it, but i do think it comes from a place of conceptualizing behaviors she has maybe been at the end of (gossip, slut-shaming, classist remarks) as "dumb girl shit" to better let them roll off her back.
all that to say, i think nat does have some internalized misogyny stuff going on, but i also think she cares deeply about her teammates and actually does respect them. it's just that she has simultaneously been boxed out of "woman" by the ways classism and purity culture also intersect with her own experience of misogyny. so there's this level of care there met with this distance of "i'm not like you. because you would never let me be."
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