Don’t be a girl’s girl
How the girl’s girl archetype has become a misogynistic way of policing women into silence.
You consider yourself a girl's girl? So, you believe in supporting and defending other women? Okay, but have you ever told your friend you disliked a shirt a girl was wearing? Yes? Well, by the internet's current standards, you’re not a girl’s girl.
The term girls girl was popularized on TikTok and is loosely defined as a woman who has strong solidarity with other women. She came in reaction to the pick me, a girl who prioritizes male validation over her own or other woman's well-being.
Being a pick-me is seen as supremely embarrassing. No one wants to be seen as caring about *gags* men. The only way you can reliably separate yourself from those desperate and lonely pick-mes is to present yourself as a girl’s girl.
Everyone wants to be a girl’s girl. She’s sweet, she’ll tell you your awful haircut looks great and she will encourage you to break up with your toxic boyfriend.
I had no criticism of the girl’s girl until I started to notice how often the term was being used as a way of differentiating good women from bad ones. I started to feel like the basis on which women were accepted and exiled from the girl’s girl class was extraordinarily delicate. While the commitment to camaraderie and cooperativeness the girl’s girl has is touching, it has a toxic side.
A TikTok I saw recently summarized it well. A girl made a video saying that she didn’t like the trend of girls wearing Brandy Melville pajama shorts outside. Her entire comment section was filled with women saying she wasn’t being a good girl’s girl.
This reaction is not rare. If a woman says something even mildly critical of other women she will get labeled an enemy to all women everywhere. It’s clear that in this case being a girl’s girl is not about a genuine loyalty to other women, but a means of manipulating women into agreeableness.
Patriarchy raises girls to be highly passive and agreeable. A society hellbent on turning women into meek and delicate housewives needs them to be conflict-avoidant, instilling agreeableness is imperative.
While agreeableness can be a virtue, when overly engaged with it can easily become toxic. It can lead to emotional fragility, people-pleasing and an inability to confront bad-behavior, even when necessary.
This obsession with agreeableness becomes internalized, to the point where women start to police each other in the name of kindness. The girl’s girl is no exception.
The girl’s girl is often defended by bringing up the point that women are already overly monitored and harassed for minor grievances. Starting young, girls are often punished for speaking loudly, getting their clothes dirty or even having bad handwriting.
In a world where the “correct” way to be a woman is so narrow, it makes sense that women want to provide a space for each other where no expression of femininity is wrong.
While that idea is logical and wholesome it ignores the true problem: the agreeableness women are conditioned into is itself the issue. The goal here is not to make more people highly agreeable but instead to instill women with more self-esteem and the courage to be authentic and outspoken. That way they have no need to be incessantly affirmed because they are already self-assured.
A girl complaining about a pair of shorts some girls are wearing might be annoying but it’s ultimately inconsequential. It’s not worth anyone's time to belittle a woman commenting on a pair of shorts. To harass her is to insinuate that if a woman is going to express an opinion it must be nice and accommodating to the feelings of as many people as possible.
She is allowed to have her opinion on a clothing trend just as much as the women engaging with it are allowed to wear the clothes. Instead, let’s tell girls that they don’t need to be seeking external approval for their day-to-day choices. It's okay to wear shorts, even if another person doesn’t like them.
Being a woman who is genuinely unbothered by whatever confines people have for how women should show up is an infinitely bigger F U to the patriarchy than yelling at a girl on TikTok for making fun of girls' shorts. Actually, I’d say to do so is to make a complete mockery of female solidarity. We’re boiling down feminism to being about the preservation of feelings and not the liberation of women. The pathological need to be nice and cooperative is much more hurtful than any minor criticism of a fashion trend could ever be.
Also ,I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’ve noticed that phrases like 'girl’s girl' and 'mean girl' have become subtle dog whistles for misogyny. It’s like the worst thing a woman can be is a 'mean girl'—and once she’s labeled that way, she becomes fair game for all the vitriol people can throw.
Great read! I share the sentiment.
In LATAM we talk about sororidad, which means women's solidarity in the face of patriarchal violence. So even if you hate other girl, you defend and support her when she's facing sexism.
With that background, I immediately rolled my eyes at the idea that female solidarity means being an smiling doll who shares her lipgloss and excessively compliment other girls. All these social expectations and codes among women are so tiring and further alineates us from each other.