girlhood

brooke mitchell  

A rediscovery of the feminine self through cannon events society has disregarded as trivial moments. 

***

I know a girl from high school with mousy brown hair that she ties in ribbon bows. I met her on the cheerleading team in my sophomore year. She is also a writer, the only other of my kind that I knew back when we were still in the locker-lined hallways. She wrote a poem about girlhood. This was a term I hadn’t considered before; I was in such a rush to grow up and never look back. I understand it now that I have gone to college and came back to visit my hometown wearing an entirely pink outfit to go see the Barbie movie on opening day with her. Now, I do everything I can to rediscover that part of me. Maybe I’ll start wearing ribbons in my hair again.

***

There has been a unity in the air among women this year that I haven’t felt since girlhood, when I was playing with dolls in little pink dresses without a thought towards the patriarchy. I’m not a little girl anymore, but recently I have been more aware of the little girl inside of me, whom I suppressed for the sake of fitting into a cruel world designed to tear me down.

Pink was the style guide for my life, the cover art for my album. I have always loved the color pink. It was the color of my walls, my bedding, my pillows, my area rug, my toys, my clothes, and even my notebooks. I was a girly girl; I was the stereotype. I hated the word stereotype as soon as I first heard it, especially when I realized I was a victim. Being called a girly girl was fair because I displayed my femininity, but the syllables were always spoken with condescendence blaring, whether intentional or not. People instantly had their own perception of me under this blanket that seemed to strip me of all my other qualities. They like totally couldn’t see anything else through my like blinding blonde hair that hadn’t yet been dinged with age like there was only air in my brain, ugh. They looked at me like I was somebody’s muse and like, like I was supposed to enjoy being in a display case, but I have always been the artist behind the brushstrokes. Like I totally wished people could see that part of me instead, so I like stopped wearing bows in my hair and like the color pink dwindled off my hangers because like I wanted to be taken seriously, obviously, and I wasn’t even double digits yet. My like really high-pitch voice full of youth went in one ear and like a Valley Girl came out the other before people could even take a second to listen to what I had to say. Like oh my God, like, I didn’t want to be a girly girl anymore. I just wanted to be a girl.

I secretly played with Barbies for longer than the other girls at school because I didn’t know why it had to be something so childish. After all, we weren’t just playing pretend, we were building our futures and imagining who we would grow into. Even once I discontinued to dress my blonde-haired dolls up in little pink dresses and they moved to a box in the basement, I kept my wardrobe filled with the shade of bubblegum among my ruffles, skirts, and bows that made my fantasy of being a princess seem feasible. I always imagined that growing up into a woman would feel like a princess, and it wasn’t entirely untrue of my adolescence. The slumber parties and gushing over my next prince charming were all too real. I have relearned to feel like a princess over the years, but the act of growing up was much less happily ever after. Growing up stopped being a fairytale when pink stopped being cool and being one of the boys was the title only the most popular girls held. Growing up stopped being a fairytale when I realized being a girl was my biggest setback. By middle school I was buying clothes in almost strictly black and white, so people would make fewer comments on how the pink of my t-shirt brought out the blush in my cheeks, which was somehow meant as a bad thing. I stripped myself of the things I valued in myself in hopes of being taken seriously in the dangerous world that was public school in the years of puberty.

***

Luckily, I escaped that hell, and I am now a nineteen-year-old in college. When I imagined myself in my sophomore year of college, I didn’t know what to picture. What would I be wearing? I’ve outgrown my Nike Pros and racerback tank tops from middle school, because I couldn’t compete with the girls who ran faster. My plaid skirts and sweaters I loved in early high school were too sophisticated for my peers because I stuck out like a sore thumb. And thank God I threw out my ripped black jeans and men’s section thrifted graphic tees that might have ruined my last impression on my high school classmates. This year, I’m discarding the parts of me that I once forced, and rediscovering the parts of myself that make me feel good. I wear more pink and the occasional ruffled skirt around campus like an older version of seven-year-old Emma, because they make my life feel a little bit more like a fairytale. I realized that life is what I make of it and not how other people perceive it. When I look in the mirror, I want to be able to recognize myself.

The little girl in me now lives in a big pink and white house with her best friends who also love getting dressed up and having dance parties in our rooms every weekend, although the parameters look a little different now. Inter-female relations have always been tough seas to navigate while growing up, resulting in competitiveness, jealousy, and over-all mean girls. This is not news, but with the development of social media’s broadcasts of people’s lives, these tendencies have only been fueled further. The hell of being a teenage girl is burning hotter than ever before because of the access to comparisons, thus creating a desire to be different. From the insecure feelings of not being as good as the starved models and beauty-filtered influencers on phone screens, a sensation to reject popularity—which I’ll refer to as the “not-like-other-girls syndrome”—was born. This came to be out of good intentions that valued individualism but grew into yet another toxic standard of not being basic, because God forbid someone likes something that other people also enjoy. The individuality complex of not wanting to be like other girls is unrealistic, because while everybody is different in their own ways, we all have our similarities. This wave of toxicity has torn apart Gen-Z young women, instead of bringing them together, including myself. I too have fallen victim more times than I would like to admit.

In middle and high school, I realized that everything was a competition. If I wanted to be liked, I had to be popular and if I wanted to be popular, I had to be liked, so dominating the social hierarchy was nearly impossible. Social media made this worse when it became more than just an unspoken competition at school, but slowly crept into personal lives, racking up like and comment counts on Instagram posts to be shared around. Whoever got the most likes must be the coolest, but that meant the spotlight was on them and jealousy caught all of their bad moments. During these vulnerable years, many girls were victims of not being cool or pretty enough due to the internet’s inescapable double standards, turning girls against each other. I was also a victim of this and began to reject almost everything the cool and pretty girls liked, because I knew I couldn’t compete with them. I masked this insecurity by being “not like other girls.” I thought that I was better than them because I didn’t care about the frivolous things they were occupied with. This mindset itself gave into the patriarchy like how men have been telling women for centuries that the feminine things they enjoy are just silly and unimportant.

This toxic mindset has not been easy to ditch, but is one that I am actively working on by embracing the feminine things I love and validating their importance to me, like wearing pink a little bit more to satisfy my inner child, who rid her closet of it to fit in. Today, I even finally gave in and bought a Stanley cup after making fun of every girl on my For You Page for having one. I have had to relearn that it is okay to be like other girls and, on a similar note, that there are other girls like me.

This is a lesson I have learned primarily through joining a sorority. Middle and high school me would freak out at this statement. I had previously been extremely against Greek life for various reasons and misconceptions, but I think it mainly has to do with the “not like other girls syndrome.” In my mind, sorority girls were two-faced basic bitches like the equivalent of wearing a PINK quarter zip with black leggings and Ugg boots to middle school. I didn’t want to be like every other girl because I wanted to be an individual, right? However, the stereotypes aren’t exactly true because now that I’m in a sorority I feel more like an individual than I ever have before. I have a strong support system of women behind me every step of the way. I volunteer for charity and do service work, which makes me feel even more connected with my community and with other women, but our image is still just party girls with pretty faces. I mean, there’s a little truth to that too, but why can’t we be smart girls who happen to be pretty? Gen-Z was told that we are fortunate enough to not live in a time of extreme gender-based discrimination so we should play sports, get an education, and have self-confidence just like the boys do, but why can’t we do it in pink? Why can’t we do it while being proud of our femininity instead of diminishing it?

***

Sororities were formed by young women pursuing higher education to connect with one another and collectively better themselves. This followed the founding of fraternities with similar motives and thus Greek life was born as each sorority and fraternity chapter was named in Greek letters. When people go away to college that is most of their first time living away from home and in that newness, students crave a sense of belonging. Greek life provides this with sisterhoods and brotherhoods that you are involved in for the four years of college, but also the rest of one’s life. The people you meet through Greek life are the people you spend most of your time with and they become a second family, which makes the adjustment to a new lifestyle a lot easier. Being in a Greek organization provides people with not only lifelong friendships but also experiences and connections that help to develop one’s future. I think that child me, before I realized that “girly girl” was not a compliment, would love the idea of being in a sorority. I get to dress up a lot for different events, hang out with a big group of new best friends, and live in the prettiest Barbie dreamhouse with them. That sounds like a little girl’s dream. I have always loved super feminine things and how much more girly does it get than being a sorority girl?

While I am coming to terms with these parts of myself and other inspiring women around me, not everyone is there yet. I know that liking feminine things is not silly or unimportant, but the fraternity boys still make fun of us when we jump up and down on Bid Day after running home to our new sisters. Worse, my professor still doubted that me and my friend in the back of the classroom could have had anything valuable to contribute to the class when we raised our hands, more than others may I add. She didn’t think the two girls who giggled and snickered during our group project could get one of the highest grades in the class. I thought the misunderstandings and quick judgments would get better as I got older and grew into myself, but they’ll always be there, just like how my mother may always make less than her male counterparts despite the many more hours she dedicates to the company.

The double standard for women might always be there, even if it’s discussed less and less to conceal it, but women are working through it differently these days. Growing up, there was a lot of competition between girls. “Who’s prettier, skinnier, funnier, fastest, smartest, hottest?” seemed to always be the question and the answer was rarely ever yourself. The first generation in the age of social media puts up a tough battle of comparison and negativity, but I think we’re finding our way back to a community. New TikTok trends have been focusing on the idea of being a girl by hyping each other up for our interests in fashion and makeup instead of tearing each other down for the same reason. TikTok “get ready with me” videos are some of the most popular because it is girls sharing their makeup routine with others while also sharing stories, tips, and moments from their lives. It’s beautiful to see femininity celebrated even with light jokes and catchphrases in a culture built around tearing it down, because it means women are realizing that their interests are valid.

***

This summer, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour has been dominating the media and almost every girl’s mind, which is contributing to this shift in women mending their relationship with their girlhood. Millions of fans are dressing up in elaborate outfits decked out in glitter and sequins in theme with one of Taylor’s eras. People are wearing everything from Halloween costumes to prom dresses to these concerts in celebration of their love for Taylor Swift and for each other as a fan base. At each concert, people make friendship bracelets to pass around to all these other fans they’ve never even met. Almost every single person comes home from the show with a Taylor-themed friendship bracelet, or even two full sleeves of them, forever tying them together as friends. Friendship bracelets were a big part of a girl’s childhood, so this homage really came full circle as Taylor performed her first tour in five years, including new albums and re-recorded albums from her past that she now owns under her own name, not a man’s.

Between the Eras Tour and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie, this summer has been a girl’s summer. The Barbie movie is a live action film starring Margot Robbie as the “Stereotypical Barbie” and features many other Barbies and Kens to depict a real-life Barbie land and its comparison to the real world. The promo for this movie is the best I think I’ve ever seen with the world seemingly going pink. Its soundtrack has the most popular pop stars and so many “Barbie girl” remixes that create the perfect high energy and fun soundtrack. There were lines out the doors of movie theaters across the globe for its release, with people dressed head to toe in pink, high heels, purses, full faces of makeup, and a shared love for being a woman. I haven’t seen a movie theater that full since the 2010s and being piled into the family car, and this movie immediately brought me back to that little girl again. The movie itself is a feminist statement that shocked many people by addressing all angles of the issue. Barbie has always been the doll girls have loved, because it was an older version of themselves that proved they could do whatever their hearts desired when they grew up. Barbie was an astronaut, a doctor, a teacher, and she did it all before women could even open a bank account in the United States. Barbie has always been a feminist icon, but her love for pink and glitter diminished her image as a blonde bimbo. This movie was a reminder of what Barbie stands for and what being a woman really means, because it’s easy to forget how much power it holds when we’re constantly made to feel like it doesn’t hold any.

Growing up as a girl was not always the straightest line, but it was a journey. I had to try and figure out who I was with a million different narratives and expectations being thrown at me to the point that I learned everything I wasn’t before I learned who I was, and believe me, I am still learning. This essay is me coming back to my inner child, telling her not to put her Barbies in the basement quite yet and that wearing a bow in my hair to school would actually look like really, really cute even if nobody else is wearing one. I also want to tell her that it is also okay to give into that one trend that all the other girls are doing even if she’ll be perceived as basic, because it is okay to like things that other people like too. I want her to know that one day she’ll be sitting in a movie theater of almost entirely women of all ages wearing pink and laughing with one another, collectively experiencing the joy of girlhood. I want her to know that I love being a woman, and embracing my girlhood saved me from becoming somebody I wasn’t.