girlhood
Barbie, but so much more than that
I'm sad again, don't tell my boyfriend
It's not what he's made for
What was I made for?
On my side of the internet, I can’t seem to escape the impact of girl lately: Barbie hot pink, Eras and Renaissance sparkles and sequins, Sandy Liang bows and balletcore. Headlines describing the triumphant economic impact of women and rise of girl culture (though not without some bemusement). The summer of 2023 feels textbook definition girl.
Growing up, I wouldn’t say I identified fully as a girly-girl or a tomboy. (I was anti-label, like a true emo kid!) As in, I didn’t shy away from interests because they were too girly nor gravitate to them because they weren’t girly. I loved getting dressed up for school dances but didn’t care about makeup until college. I played video games to hang out with my boy cousins and put together fashion photoshoots with my girlfriends. Perhaps staying somewhere in-between the two was unconsciously intentional.
The traditional distinction between feminine and masculine interests doesn’t matter as much as it used to, but it does seem like we’re more comfortable with leaning into the feminine lately. Case in point: for Barbie opening weekend (I did not participate in Barbenheimer), I put on my pink boots and face jewels and trekked uptown to my friend’s Dream House to pregame our showing. (Side note: I think the last time I dressed up for the movies was for the final Harry Potter films, which had a very different dress code.)
Upon arriving, I stepped into a living room decked out with pink balloons, stacks of temporary tattoos, and pink vodka lemonades. We spotted many other pink-clad moviegoers on our way to the theatre, all cheerfully waving as we passed. Hi, Barbie! Hi, Ken!
Barbie was not perfect, but it was delightful. I expected an imaginative whirlwind and was pleasantly surprised by the rollercoaster of emotions, as we laughed out loud and teared up in silence beside each other. The first 15 minutes had us all wishing Barbieland was real – if not so much for its glossy perfection but rather its promise of a safe space for women: a joyously-supportive, shame-free, endless-possibility world.
In the days following, I would open up TikTok and watch video after video of women reflecting upon their own girlhood, reflecting on the poignant ending scenes. I cried to myself as I read through comments of echoed sentiments. There’s something inexplicably communal about girlhood that becomes subverted in modern womanhood.
I flew to L.A. a week later to attend the Eras tour for my second (and way less chaotic) time. It’s true what the articles say: the Eras environment feels like a real-world Barbieland. And it’s not the show itself, although the production is transportive in many ways; it’s something about the shared experience. The sheer excitement and palpable anticipation in the stadium. Girls befriending each other in long merch and bathroom lines, freely exchanging handmade bracelets and compliments. Every security guard waving concertgoers through with bracelets stacked on their wrists and a big smile. Dads with young daughters in tow. Moms and sisters and friends of all ages.
Everyone in the crowd cheers when the lights dim and a 2-minute countdown appears on screen. We are united in this moment of sincere and unapologetic excitement.
Attending Harry Styles’ show last year was a somewhat comparable experience. The crowd sang every single word with ardor, and I swear I could feel Madison Square Garden shaking as their colorful cowboy hats and feather boas bounced to the beat. Harry concluded this 2-year-long tour in July with a video tribute that celebrates the fans’ dedication and energetic atmosphere. It’s a refreshing visual contrast to the outdated media habit of conflating fandom with hysteria. (Is Fandom An Obsession Or Is That the Misogyny Talking?)
A few years prior, he did an interview with Rolling Stone where he defended this sincerity:
When asked about if he ever feels pressure to prove himself to an older audience given his young, mostly female fan base, Harry said, “Who’s to say that young girls who like pop music – short for popular, right? – have worse musical taste than a 30-year-old hipster guy? That’s not up to you to say. Music is something that’s always changing. There’s no goal posts. Young girls like the Beatles. You gonna tell me they’re not serious?…How can you say young girls don’t get it? They’re our future. Our future doctors, lawyers, mothers, presidents, they kind of keep the world going. Teenage-girl fans – they don’t lie. If they like you, they’re there. They don’t act ‘too cool.’ They like you, and they tell you. Which is sick.”
Kids experience emotions and existence with what can only be described as sincerity, because we teach kids to voice what they want and how they feel.
Popular girls’ organizations are built around encouraging this self-discovery:
“What do Girl Scouts do? Anything they set their mind to. They’re discovering who they are and what they love to do.”
“GIRLS INC. INSPIRES ALL GIRLS TO BE STRONG, SMART, AND BOLD.”
Such boldness typically means making many mistakes along the way, which we forgive more readily when someone is inexperienced and young. But come adolescence and adulthood, the world isn’t quite as forgiving or encouraging of boldness – especially for women. There seems to be a never-ending list of conflicting standards for women, as America Ferrera explains in her now internet-famous Barbie monologue. Everyone has an idea of what women should and should not be as they compare women against impossible ideals. Women are simultaneously not enough and too much. It feels like there’s no winning.
We tell girls to be true to themselves and then turn around to measure them up against impossible expectations. As a girl, who you get to be feels like pure possibility. But as a woman? You get to balance the roles of daughter, mother, sister, woman, partner, coworker, boss, friend, and so on. You, as yourself, shrinks in comparison.
When does that shift begin? I think one of the clearest signals of exiting girlhood is gaining an external self-awareness. Like you’re waking up and looking at the mirror one day and realizing everyone else can suddenly see you. So you start paying attention to when you’re noticed or unnoticed and caring if you’re cool enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, fast enough, smart enough. As the world begins to look at you and your body in a new way, you soon understand how easy it is to turn your own flesh and thought against yourself. (To be a teenage girl is to be your own worst enemy.)
And if all that seems to set girlhood apart from womanhood is the act of growing up –getting wedged between contradictions and under labels – it’s no wonder we seek validation in all the wrong places. As a girl, you may have been enough. But as a woman, you may never be.
Because as a woman, I’m known for what people can see: my accomplishments, my social circles, my relationship status. Who am I without anything to show for it all?
Is girlhood, at its core, simply who we are before someone tells what we can or cannot be? Or is it a state of mind, some dedicated aversion to the self-erasure that comes with titles like wife or mother? (What Does It Mean When We Call Women Girls?)
And if girlhood is just a reflection of my inner self, where does girlhood end and womanhood supposedly begin?
"Growing up is about leaving behind childish things, particularly for women. Men get to have their man caves and play their video games forever. And women, it's like, 'Toys away, do the chores, grow up.'…it's, in a way, counterculture — that we can be a lot of things at once, that we can be joyful and playful and imaginative and childlike, and be a grown woman professional taken seriously." America Ferrera
Maybe girlhood doesn’t need to end. I suppose I’m feeling optimistic – as our culture is in the midst of this joyful girl-trend revolution. Now we balance our (healing) girlboss days with lazy girl dinners! And not because we’re less capable, but because we’re doing more things just for fun and for ourselves.
These days, I can’t help but be perpetually aware of girlhood and how we’re accessing it. We build clay vases for the first time just to try something new. On an evening stroll, I pass by a little girl sitting patiently behind a table, a taped down sign proclaiming HANDMADE JEWELRY $3! as her father watches closely from a stoop. A girlfriend invites me over to watch the Lizzie Mcguire Movie and we romanticize vespa-riding around Rome with a cute Italian boy (and of course, sing this is what dreeeeams are made of). On Thursday nights, we squeeze on a couch to giggle and gasp throughout the new episodes of the Summer I Turned Pretty (Team Connie baby xoxo). When I FaceTime my mom and her face crinkles in delight, I remember that she, too, was also once just a girl.
Girlhood is a lot of things. So is womanhood. But in its simplest form, I still believe that girlhood is sincerity: an unapologetic choice to let yourself be excited about something, even if you might get shut down. An honest effort to try something, even if you might fail or embarrass yourself. Maybe one day we’ll learn how to hold both entities with equal care – to take women seriously and allow girls to just be girls.
Every time I let myself feel what I feel and say what I mean, I think about how I’m doing it all for her:
If you have a spare hour on the internet, might I recommend some of my bookmarks (listed in order of required time consumption):
Rayne Fisher-Quann on the internet cycle of dehumanizing women: What does it mean to get woman’d?
Taylor Swift on navigating criticism and success as a female artist: 2019 Woman of the Decade Award Acceptance Speech
Broey Deschanel on the challenges of depicting girlhood (pre-Barbie): Greta Gerwig, Representation, and the Universal Girl
Last read The Midnight Library (Matt Haig) and Yellowface (R.F. Kuang)
What’s next? I’d love to know if there’s anything you think I should write about (especially you paid subscribers 🥹😭)…reply or send me a DM <3