Spoiler alert: yes you are…
Is it just me or is there an influx of girls trying really hard not to be girls? There’s an entire subculture of women desperate to prove that they’re…well…men, I guess. It’s all about publicly displaying your apathy towards all things feminine. No mini skirts, no makeup, no pop music, no high heels. You know, all that dumb stuff that girls like. Because being associated to females is like totally the worst thing ever.
Is there some universal disdain for women that I’m unaware of? Is “other girls” an awful insult in some other secret language that I don’t speak? Because when you say “I’m not like other girls”, the only logical conclusion I can come to is that you’re some sort of half girl-half wasp hybrid species. Or you have a penis. Otherwise, that phrase means nothing to me. It definitely doesn’t make me think higher of you.
728 million girls aren’t like other girls. Ha. Apparently, women think this phrase exempts them from the “negative connotations” of being female, the very same negative connotations that they promote and reiterate each time they spew out that line.
It’s the most desperate cry for male approval I’ve ever come across. It’s not the makeup and diets and selfies that embarrass girls. It’s you. Because when you say “I’m not like other girls” what you’re really saying is “girls are pathetic and self obsessed and unintelligent and all things low and bad.”
Soraya Chemaly from the Huffington Post theorises that this internalised misogyny stems from the recurring idea that being female is constantly used as an insult in our society.
“What’s the worst thing you can call a woman? “C*nt” has to be pretty high up there. [For a man it’s the] same thing or some variation of [being called] a woman… Boys learn this early on: girly, sissy, fag (yes, that’s misogynistic, too). Conversely, for women it’s a step up if you say “she’s got balls.” When little boys get away with “you throw like a girl”.. they grow up to say, “You’re a pussy” and mean it,” she says.
So instead of saying “I’m funny, I’m clever, I’m loyal, I’m driven”, you say “I’m not like other girls”. That sums it up right? Because everyone knows that girl =bad. Girls only care about boys and makeup and shopping. So women put this phrase in their dating sites, status updates and song lyrics like it’s some bragging right. As though not being like other girls is the equivalent of winning a nobel peace prize. Because if girl =bad, then not-girl =good, right?
Wow Taylor that’s great. I’m blown away. You deserve a medal for that accomplishment. We should have flown you over to Sochi and stood you on a podium. It must be so hard to not wear mini skirts and makeup like all those silly other girls. Thank you for perpetuating the idea that femininity (the icon of womanhood) is something to be ashamed of.
Amazing. Apparently every girl on planet earth is ditzy and girly and dumb and you’re the exception. Well excuse me for wanting to smack you with your thirsty cry for approval, but you need to be stopped before you cause anymore damage to societal perception of females.
“It saddens me to see girls proudly declaring they’re not like other girls – especially when it’s 41,000 girls saying it in a chorus, never recognizing the contradiction. It’s taking a form of contempt for women – even a hatred for women – and internalizing it by saying, yes, those girls are awful, but I’m special, I’m not like that, instead of stepping back and saying, this is a lie,” says feminist blogger, Claudia Gray.
You know what my dad said to me? He said if my nails are always done, people won’t take me seriously at work. He’s right. People don’t take you seriously if you’re feminine. You can’t be like other girls, you don’t want to be associated with those air-headed bimbos. In fact, don’t even be like other homo-sapiens just to be safe. Be a single cell organism. Why not take it even further and not be like other living things on planet earth? “I’m not like other sentient beings, I’m a bath plug.”
I’m getting carried away but you do see how ridiculous this is, right? I mean I assumed it went without saying but apparently it needs to be clarified that each person is an individual and demonising an entire group of people based on their gender (or race, or sexuality, or religion) is so third reich. Be proud of being a woman. You were pretty much born with a 3D printer inside your vagina! That is so intensely, unimaginably cool. You need to own it.
– Newsha Tari
Top photo made by Newsha Tari
Taylor Swift photo from Eva Rinaldi’s Flickr stream
Photo 3 from merrycrisco’s Tumblr account
Photo 4 screen cap from SNL episode 02/17/01.
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