Girlhood is a Double-Edged Sword

it’s liberating to be ‘just a girl’ until someone believes it

Via Elle UK

Girl Dinner! Girl boss! Girl hobbies! We’re just girls! Rediscover your inner girl! 

Business of Fashion says “The ‘Girl’ Obsession Continues — 2023 was all about embracing unabashed femininity. That was the case in fashion, too, as girly, coquette-inspired accents like bows, lace and ruffles rose in popularity and brands looked to ballet for inspiration.” Entertainment has focused on girlhood: of being made to grow up too fast in Priscilla, nurturing exactly who you are/the girl you used to be with the help of an uplifting doll (/damaging plastic capitalist machine) in Barbie, or trying to make amends for years lost in the ever resilient memoir by Britney Spears. 

Elle UK credits Cecilia Bahnsen, Simone Rocha and Molly Goddard for leading the cute charge on the runway: “Clothes that could be worn by a particularly sweet china doll are twisted so the ‘sugar and spice and all things nice’ of sweet little girls is reworked for a generation steeped in the fourth wave of feminism. In these designers’ hands, cute looks positively subversive.”

It should be no secret the girl obsession is trending as a response to current events. Globally, we’re hitting a cultural apex. Nations are being starved to death for months on end, whispers of more war are being passed around, housing is limited and pricing out a majority of renters, living wage isn’t a comfortable wage, and worldwide natural disasters are on full throttle due to climate change. If you have the privilege to do so, you turn to pretty things and nostalgic daydreams so that everything hurts a little less. 

Enter girlhood. A callback to the simpler, more imaginative, precious time in our lives.

On one side, attending to the girl inside is incredibly liberating. For a long time (sometimes still), growing up meant doing all the ‘shoulds’, setting aside the girl who wants and wishes because she doesn’t understand the real world yet. Personally, I’ve never felt more myself than I have in the last year and a half where I allow myself to be more playful, dream big, give love freely, make mistakes, challenge the need to control every aspect of life to measure perfection …and yes, wear ribbons in my hair.

I try to view it as a way to honor myself in all the iterations I have been. In action, it has welcomed more fun and kindness into my life! I love the conversations that spawn in a room full of exclusively women whether it’s the bathroom of a bar or an organized panel event. I love setting my purses alongside books and a vase of flowers as decor. I love sleepovers after a night out where there’s no reason to laugh this hard except that we’re best friends. I love getting dressed in something that I’m not sure will work!!

Welcoming ‘girlhood’ came with little resistance. We don’t care what the men think! Let’s wear way more pink so they know we feel empowered and are saying fuck you!! I dutifully grabbed my pitchfork and joined in. As the trend rages on, I’ve started to pick up on the direct and indirect cultural consequences that leave me wondering if it’s all that it’s cracked up to be. 

Lana del Rey for Skims

Let’s hear it for (male) oppression of (male-) constructed ‘female’ norms!!! *a crowd cheers* In girlhood, think about weaponized incompetence in the home, a place girls are taught to keep orderly and comfortable to reflect the orderly woman you will become. We play ‘house’ and create families and imaginary weddings, for god’s sake. And yeah, a lot of women go to work now, which is step 1 of liberation per the second wave of feminism in the 70’s, but how much of our present societal rules are still divided by gender? We are told to grow up, keep a good house, work really hard and still keep up the majority of domestic labor in a relationship, and look hot doing it, but are told to sit back down before we get too ahead of it all like the good girl we are. Cue the ‘You have to be thin, but not too thin’ monologue.

I just feel like as we choose these things for a subversive take on certain attributes of the things that bind us, we only feel free to the people who “get” the concept. We can’t control how awful men, or capitalism — the targets of our resistance — preys upon girlhood. How they benefit by dollar or by some other power that we remain in a dreamlike state of yearning for our lost childhood. The genesis of  the “I’m just a girl” campaign reminded men we can’t do their emotional work for them, to be lovers or friends and secondary mothers; now, it is meant to infantilize us for being girlish when what they really want to say is predisposed to foolishness or weakness. Clearly, only one gender is allowed to call back on childhood and retain their power.

The ideal state proposed for women is docility, which means not being fully grown up… Most of what is cherished as ‘feminine’ is simply behavior that is childish, immature, weak. To offer so low and demeaning a standard of fulfillment in itself constitutes oppression in an acute form — a sort of moral neocolonialism.

Susan Sontag, On Women

This has been a mostly white-led trend, save for America Ferrera’s character in Barbie. A recent post from impact mentioned a 2019 study that found Black female characters are more likely to be shown as violent and less likely to be depicted as attractive than white female characters. Young girls of color, particularly black girls, are dehumanized, denied their innocence, and treated as more adult-like; they are thrown into cycles of abuse, be it immediate or societal, from the age when you’re supposed to be learning fractions and tying your shoes. When you think about the disadvantages of having the patriarchy pressing on our necks, take into account the entire sisterhood — we cannot afford to desert one another.

No matter if it’s classified under the woman or girl categories, our ‘hobbies’ also require a chunk of change. Think skin or hair care routines that consist of at least six or seven products; shopping on the weekends; biweekly nail appointments; getting ‘little treats’ like a coffee or pastry. The link between consumption and inherently ‘girly things’ couldn’t be more clear. I enjoy all of these activities, and yet viewing it in this perspective makes me want to stop this goddamn train.

In no way am I intent on patronizing you and your girl hobby, your pink outfit, your girl dinner — though on the latter I just hope you are getting sufficient nutrients and calories. I’m not sidling up to the He Man Woman Hater’s Club and casting judgment with them. You, and your participation in girlhood, are not the rival at hand. The question we must ask is who profits off our innocence?

I think there’s an opportunity here to rebrand girlhood without letting it set us back in class tensions. What we are longing for, in my opinion, is to be dimensional in what women represent. To allow the severed ties of our delicate upbringing to live alongside us as we age; not to discard her in exchange for whatever the hell we thought being a ‘woman’ was supposed to be. To be flawed, playful, strong and powerful, obsessed with small trinkets, sexy, demure, the whole shebang… whether it’s in kitten heels or ballet flats. Be the girl; just don’t let it blur your vision.

Love u girlies xoxo

Ryann