Picture this: it’s 2011 and you’re in the car with your boyfriend. He loves Triple J (for my non-Aussies, think alternative local music), so you love Triple J. When he asks you what you want to listen to you, you put on what you know he would love. You watch him enjoy music.
You don’t get what’s so good about it.
Picture this: You break up. You realize you have no idea what you like, you created a personality just for him. You don’t know how to find yourself among it all so you learn what your friends like, creating a mental spreadsheet of what to play around who. You start going to festivals, and you discover you like how music feels on drugs and thats close enough to a music taste for now.
Picture this: You date boys again (did I mention you’re gay? No idea why you kept doing this), and a string of musicians, one in particular has a staunch idea about pop music. He says it’s part of a conspiracy to make people dumber. He tells you that you are too smart to enjoy it. Which is wild, because you do enjoy it. He puts on his political rap. You tell him it makes you feel enraged.
He tells you you don’t get it. His playlists are superior.
You listen to your music secretly on the 5-minute drive to work.
I am in the middle of edits for my book Women of the Womb which is being republished (yes, still… don’t judge me). One of the chapters focuses on “cool girl syndrome”:
Definition: a girl who is super chill, doesn't rock the boat, and someone who "isn't like other girls". She's one of the guys. She also makes herself super uncomfortable because sometimes, being "cool" comes at the expense of countering her own needs and wants.
Do we have time to unpack all of that? Not really (I’ll do it in my book though *winks* because… marketing).
The statement — or prayer — “I’m not like other girls” is used as armor against the undesirable assumptions we whip women with. These definitions are described as stereotypes.
Even though at best they could be defined as protection mechanisms or reactions to a society that tells you that you aren’t enough. And at worst could be described as cages of patriarchal bullshit specifically designed to turn us against each other and keep us in a battle that distracts us from the war.
A bit much for a Thursday morning? Baby girl, get your coffee, I’m just getting started.
*sips mine* so why the hell do we all think we aren’t like other girls?
Lemme tell you.
It’s common practice to box females into a one-dimensional object (objectification anyone?).
Dramatic.
Slutty.
Desperate.
Bitch.
Basic.
Needy.
We dehumanize women to try and control them. We do it to try and predict them. We do it to keep them in line. We do it to try and keep the world the predictable place it’s been for the last thousand years where women know their place.
The reason every single woman thinks that they “aren’t like other girls” is because none of us match the one-dimensional horse shit definition society gives us. We are all complex, multi-dimensional people with unique needs, desires, and dreams. We are all adaptable to situations and environments. We all react differently pre and post-first coffee in the morning.
We want to distance ourselves from these definitions because they don’t fit.
AND… because being “that girl” who has needs, desires, and dreams outside of existing for men, means you are breaking the mold of what is “known”, you rock the very foundation of society. And that foundation is a cloud of happy privilege for some.
If you exist to be someone’s “other half” and you start showing up whole, that creates a world of discomfort for someone who only defines and knows themselves through the power and oppression they hold over other people.
Our interests are one place that gets the trim when it comes to fitting into the box labeled “desirable woman”.
I’ll use the example of music — it was such a point of manipulation for me, and it’s something that I am still exploring.
Unfortunately, shaming girls and women for enjoying popular media is a common practice. The term “fan girl” leaves a bitter taste on the tongue, as if we aren’t meant to enjoy life, as if we aren’t meant to be a fan of art or creation.
God forbid we start to be so intimately familiar with what we like, that when we look around this world we see a society that drastically needs to change to fit that.
Music snobbery and misogyny that’s rooted in shaming female artists and females for enjoying music that makes them feel something, is, of course, a leaf on a tree of patriarchal roots.
You might be thinking, “Come on EP, we have bigger fish to fry than music tastes”.
Mocking and belittling the enjoyment of women and girls leaves a mark. One that makes us feel forbidden to follow our interests for fear that they aren’t the ‘right’ ones.
In a society that pins us against each other — that tells us there are a finite amount of men who will choose us before our ovaries shrivel up and we turn into hags after our 25th birthday.
It’s easy to see why we don’t want to work together: we have been trained to see each other as the enemy. To see the world as made up of a finite amount of approval and love.
It’s easy to see why we think the pinnacle of our evolution is to be desirable.
Since exploring what I like — from art, to sex, to clothes, to touch, to food, to people — life has gotten drastically better (shocker?).
I thought that nothing would taste as good as being desired feels, but I was wrong. My joy and peace are the most delectable morsels on my tongue. I feel alive, inspired by, immersed in, and toe-curlingly enthralled by life.
Given that’s what turns me on, I’ve concluded that hot girls do in fact, listen to pop.
Wow! Intense and insightful.
Oooh I have missed you! This is fire, Erica. So relatable. Also, the bit about calculating what the people around you like and then creating playlists (or personalities) to match made my little autistic heart feel so seen. Here’s to finally figuring out who we are outside of patriarchal expectations and projections! ♥️♥️♥️