Just read this, Madison. Very tricky unpacking here. I have several memories and thoughts right now from high school to academia. As someone who clearly was Not The Mean Girl and only felt an interest in flashy lipsticks in her early 20s, I still grapple with the confusion of how much of the accepted femininity I should display. Ha ha! I do want to state that I have faced what I call soft-bullying from the Mean Girl personalities.
Thanks for reading Sayani! This was one of the earlier works I published on here, admittedly it may be due for a refresh. I feel like my perspective on a lot of what I discussed here has shifted in ways that would make for an interesting update.
Nonetheless, I do still think that the characterization of girl-ness/femininity as stupid and evil in 2000s rom coms did young girl viewers a bit of a disservice. While many of these characters reflect real-life bullies (I faced a lot of them myself too), I don’t think that women should have to shed their “feminine” traits to be seen as “real.” At the same time, gender is a construct. And perhaps making the hero of the story a girl that doesn’t align with a stringent binary gender is more beneficial than the casting of traditional femininity as evil. There is a lot of layers to this, still more for me to chew on, I have a feeling I’ll be chewing on it for quite awhile, as it taps into presentational questions that I personally grapple with today.
Just read this, Madison. Very tricky unpacking here. I have several memories and thoughts right now from high school to academia. As someone who clearly was Not The Mean Girl and only felt an interest in flashy lipsticks in her early 20s, I still grapple with the confusion of how much of the accepted femininity I should display. Ha ha! I do want to state that I have faced what I call soft-bullying from the Mean Girl personalities.
Thanks for reading Sayani! This was one of the earlier works I published on here, admittedly it may be due for a refresh. I feel like my perspective on a lot of what I discussed here has shifted in ways that would make for an interesting update.
Nonetheless, I do still think that the characterization of girl-ness/femininity as stupid and evil in 2000s rom coms did young girl viewers a bit of a disservice. While many of these characters reflect real-life bullies (I faced a lot of them myself too), I don’t think that women should have to shed their “feminine” traits to be seen as “real.” At the same time, gender is a construct. And perhaps making the hero of the story a girl that doesn’t align with a stringent binary gender is more beneficial than the casting of traditional femininity as evil. There is a lot of layers to this, still more for me to chew on, I have a feeling I’ll be chewing on it for quite awhile, as it taps into presentational questions that I personally grapple with today.
I look forward to more of such essays. Really enjoying them. :)
Love the Claire’s Thunderstorm! Been awhile since I have seen one . Well written !