From running around as a toddler at the playground to running around college campus as an adult, I have never understood the statement “Oh, so you’re that girl…” Like what exactly does that mean? I find it very confusing and the meaning vague. When you meet someone new or you’re being introduced to a group and making small talk, you give a few facts about yourself. These facts are usually things like taste in music, food, clothes, movies, hobbies and somewhere along your introduction you’re interrupted with “so you’re that kind of girl.”
From that point forward there is a set perspective about you, people have you figured based on the sole concept of what type of girl you are. You are categorized, labeled, stereotyped. Being “that girl” is not necessarily a bad thing; it only becomes harmful when it is the only definition of who you are. Courage, sacrifice, determination, commitment, toughness, heart, talent, guts: that’s what girls are made of, heck that’s what women are made of. We define ourselves; no one else has that right.
“That girl” not only comes from men, it most often comes from women and it comes off as snobby, rude, and a bit degrading when women themselves feel like they have to up one another because we do not feel like we’re good enough being who we respectfully are. Despite how society has portrayed women to appear in forms of media and television, we should not, as a collective group of women, resort to a certain definition of what it means to be “that girl”.
This statement has been attached to every type of girl out there. From athletes, musicians to scholars, entrepreneurs; but at the end of the day, we have to realize that with every obstacle and challenge we overcome we are no longer the girl we were before. We have grown into “bright young women, sick of swimming ready to stand“ and take on the world. Like DAMN keep on being you and enjoy everything you do that makes you “that girl.” The world is a better place for having a girl, excuse me, woman, like you in it.