One night, many many months ago, I went out to a bar with a friend for her birthday. We’d been drinking and talking all night, rehashing the drama from middle school and high school that still makes us laugh so hard our cackling could almost be heard over the music booming through the speakers around us.
We were like two witches, delighting in our past revelries and indiscretions, our faces flush with laughter, as we stirred our cauldrons, I mean, drinks. She’s one of those people who makes me feel calm but confident, comfortable in my own skin. She’s always made me feel light, but it’s taken years and years of work to build this push and pull of a friendship that alights to a magic that’s practically palpable when we’re together.
During one of my many trips to the bathroom that night—as is per usual when drinking—I stood at the sink, focusing maybe a little too hard on washing my hands, when another girl walked up beside me, eyeing me in the mirror. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her smile as she leaned over and said: “I love your butterfly clips!”
I adorned my hair with pink butterfly clips to match the butterfly t-shirt I wore that night, but also because my hair was a bit too greasy to deal with. I was only slightly buzzed, but as I listened to her tell me about a pair she had when she was a girl, I felt drunk. I was drunk on the genuine interest that shown in her eyes as I told her about how my friend—the one I was with—was the one who got me the clips I had in my hair. I was drunk with happiness and joy as I returned to my table, where I smiled and laughed for the rest of the night until my cheeks hurt and my voice was gone.
***
Throughout my life, I’ve always been one of those people who is friends with everyone but doesn’t actually have a lot of friends, if ya know what I mean. From elementary school on, I pretty much always knew everyone in my classes, and they knew me. I definitely wouldn’t say I was popular, but I got along with most everyone (those people pleasing tendencies started yoouunnngg) and I subscribed to the idea that I “wasn’t like the other girls”.
I was a tomboy. I was smart but cool. Dainty but strong. I didn’t dress like a girly girl and I didn’t act like the other girls. I was the exception (cue Paramore’s “The Only Exception”).
Of course, in reality, I was just like everyone else, but as a kid, I assumed I must be special, somehow. But I also often felt different, and as I got older and realized I couldn’t wish these differences away, I leaned into them. I pushed myself away, and although I had friends, I didn’t have many. But the few I did have filled me to the bone with a joy I now ache for.
I miss my small group of friends, who, just like me, felt a little out of place; even if we were brought together by a somewhat misguided outsider syndrome. However, as I’ve been mulling over why I felt this way throughout my childhood—aside from that overt need to be special in someway—I’ve realized I don’t know how to talk about it without also talking about my ethnicity.
I’m not going to say I was bullied and rejected for being Mexican, because I wasn’t. I’m a white passing woman, who only occasionally deals with being asked “what are you?”, now that I’ve gotten older. Sometimes I mourn that young girl, skin tinged with the warmth of the sun kissed earth, but mostly I mourn for her. For having to deal with that at such a young age. Always having to give an explanation for why she looked the way she did. Why she didn’t burn in the sun, why her hair was so dark, why the words of the language she never got to know rolled off her tongue with ease. why why why
These questions settled into me until I asked them too, until I reprimanded myself for all the things I was and was not. I was always too much, too little. Never enough of one thing and always too much of another.
Unfortunately, it influenced the way I saw myself, and the way I interacted with others. It didn’t help that other girls were often commenting on my skin tone, but I personally never perceived any of it as an insult. It just felt weird in a way that my young brain couldn’t yet fathom. It felt weird to have them always lifting my arm, pressing theirs against mine to compare the warm tones of my skin with the cool tones of theirs. It felt weird when they told me they wished their skin looked like mine. As if it was some compliment to have them gathered around me like I was some exhibition meant to be marveled over.
However, I did all the things other girls would do. I played with Barbie and Littlest Pet Shop and Polly Pocket. I loved playing dress up and fantasy games where I was always either a princess or a fairy or both. I had a relatively girly childhood and should’ve easily fallen into place with the others, except that I could never get over how being around them made me feel.
As a little girl I spent what felt like hours looking at the toys in the girl’s aisle at Target, unable to decide because none of them ever looked like me. I wanted one that I could see myself in, and although I didn’t understand that desire at that age, I remember agonizing over the fact that none of them were quite right. There was no doll for a half Mexican girl who didn’t understand why she was never enough of either sides of her. Why, no matter where she was, she always felt torn in two. I think that’s why I rejected some parts of girlhood.
***
Recently, girl culture has been on the rise, and last year, it was at it’s peak with Barbie and girl dinner and Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. But, since the 90’s, feminism has been slowly inching closer and closer toward this hyper-feminine expression of womanhood. To be feminist is to be proud of being a woman, and the best way to do that is to indulge in all your girlish desires.
Sometimes it feels like these ideas were brought on by one singular event, but it’s been a long time coming. The expression of extreme femininity really took hold in the postfeminist media of the early 2000’s, it’s message splattered in pink, but it had started even before that. This new age of being a woman with more freedom, especially economically, than many of the women that came before us, opened up a yawning chasm that we’ve been scrambling to fill ever since.
But postfeminism’s depiction of the new feminist is decidedly singular. She is white, skinny, straight, has clear skin, is always desirable, and has little to no financial constraints. She is the consumerist dream girl.
Truthfully, there’s nothing wrong with liking pink, wearing bows, wanting to wear short skirts and high heels. But that’s not all feminism is. It can’t be. And I think most of us know that. We just don’t know how to be both and neither, so we turn a blind eye and do whatever’s easiest.
Relishing in girl culture while simultaneously being aware of all its glaring flaws isn’t easy. In fact, it’s painful. It’s not that I’m not happy that girls are finally at the center of the conversation, that our stories and experiences are finally being told, but that this one experience is being accepted as true for all of us. That it’s being told as this monocultural truth for all women. As if we’re all one big mass of GIRL that can be pushed aside now that our story has been told. When in reality, we’ve just barely scratched the surface.
***
Sometimes I feel sad when a friend of mine shares a movie or anecdote from their childhood that I didn’t see or can’t relate to. I feel as though I lost out on experiences that were vital to my development as a woman. Like there’s something missing within me because I didn’t dye my hair with Kool-Aid or watch Aquamarine. I feel like that little girl again.
For a moment, a part of me felt that way after my encounter with the girl who complimented me on my butterfly clips. As I pushed through the crowds of people, I felt like I had morphed back into that tomboy that rejected her girlish desires because she felt rejected by them. As if everyone could see that those sparkly clips weren’t actually a part of my childhood. That I was a fake because I never experienced that part of girlhood.
But when I returned to the table with my friend, all of that fell away. I was reminded of when we were just two girls hiding in our castle made from sheets and comforters, pretending our orange juice and Nilla wafers were actually tea and crumpets. The late night runs to Walmart with her mom, when we tried to contain our giggling as we painted all over the displays with nail polish. The way our laughter echoed off the walls of our bedrooms.
Girlhood isn’t and shouldn’t be limited to the toys we played with and the accessories we wore. This doesn’t mean that we can’t talk about girlhood. Actually, I want us to talk about it more. I want to talk about every detail and nuance that makes up each of our experiences as girls. I want us to fill books and movie screens with iteration after iteration of girlhood.
I want us to fill this space with our stories, not with the objects they tell us make up who we are.
This piece was inspired by a poem I read that was reposted on
, but originally written by Jennifer Rockwell, who I don’t think has a Substack. However, I cannot recommend her poem “i want to be just like every other girl” enough.I was also inspired by
’s article “Am I not a Swiftie because I was fat?”. Her commentary on the Taylor Swift craze and how her experiences as a child affected how she interacted with Taylor Swift really got me thinking about how my ethnicity influenced the way I’ve been interacting with our celebrations of girlhood. I really recommend this article and her entire page . I mean I read this article a month ago and haven’t been able to stop thinking about it!Please feel free to share whatever you would like. I normally add questions to get people going, but I don’t think that fits here.
However, I’d love if people shared something about their childhood, but I’m also happy to read about any thoughts and feelings this essay might’ve brought up💗
summer, this was amazing! thank you for bringing this sentiment to light, and reading your personal experience of feeling alienated from the perceptions of girlhood because of racial and cultural ideals gave me another perspective on why the pop feminist "return to girlhood" movement is rather flawed. you've inspired me to write more about my experiences as a tomboy then baby butch lesbian in this space. although this is a distinct lens, there are some similarities in our experience. i will definitely urge readers to check your post out!
What a lovely piece Summer! I may send it to my cousin, she’s half Iranian and has expressed similar feelings to me so I think she’d enjoy it :) I of course loved everything but I especially loved how you discussed the need for the conversation surrounding girlhood to be separated from consumerism. That’s such an interesting take that I will be thinking more about. PS I’d compliment your butterfly clips in the bar bathroom too 🫶🏻