We’ve all heard of the “girl’s girl.” She’s kind, compassionate, and always willing to lend a helping hand to a fellow girl in need. She hands you a tampon beneath the stall door when you need one, she tucks your tag in when it’s sticking out of your shirt, and she either begrudgingly tolerates or vehemently hates your boyfriend. Either way, she’ll never fight with you over a man.
But what separates a girl’s girl — in its most accepted definition — from someone who will roll over for her friends? Because, to be honest, the first and foremost girl that we all need to prioritize is ourselves.
What’s a girl’s girl?
The definition varies depending on who you’re asking. For some, being a girl’s girl means fighting for gender equality and opportunity. For others, it shows up on a smaller scale: telling your friend when she has lipstick on her teeth or holding her drink for her while she’s in the bathroom.
Either way, she thinks of other women and does what she can to prioritize their well-being instead of competing with them (which women are historically socialized to do). She’s the antithesis of the pick-me, who craves male validation and will belittle or step over any woman to get it.
Can the “girl’s girl” rhetoric be harmful?
There’s a fine line between being a girl’s girl and being a doormat, but it can often be hard to identify. How far are you willing to go to appreciate your female friendships, follow girl code, and have other women’s backs? Would you be relentlessly supportive of your girlfriend’s poor decisions? Would you call her out on unkind behavior? The rules around being a girl’s girl can seem constricting.
Moreover, labeling someone “not a girl’s girl” is construed as an insult and damnation. Once a girl receives this characterization, other women gain permission to dogpile on her, sometimes without really even knowing her. Was she deliberately mean, or did she simply disagree with you? This distinction is hardly clarified once a girl has been tagged as “not a girl’s girl.”
This article on Medium lays out an example: Nancy was uncomfortable with how close Amanda was getting to her boyfriend, spilling all her grievances about Amanda to a table full of other women. Once the words “she’s not a girl’s girl” came out of Nancy’s mouth, the rest all began sharing their complaints about Amanda as well. The author, however, identified a key point that protested the vilification of Amanda and the exoneration of Nancy: They were using a term meant to empower women and promote sisterhood to slander and demonize a woman who was not even there to explain herself.
How can I choose myself and be a girl’s girl?
Empathy. That’s how.
Know yourself, love yourself, and forgive yourself. Spend some time in your own head; what are your values? How do you act in accordance with those values, and when have you violated them? Once you’ve given yourself a couple of basic themes to live by — maybe, “I want my friends to know I love them” or “I make my own judgments regardless of others’ opinions” — you can catch yourself whenever you slip up. And don’t worry, slipping up is normal.
Once you take away all the expectations and nonsensical rules around being a girl’s girl, you’re left with the core of it: making an effort to understand and appreciate other women. A girl’s girl does not blindly accept the actions of others, nor does she vilify women who breach the arbitrary boundaries she’s set around herself. She considers both her own values and the ones of those around her, making decisions based on them rather than on assumptions or misperceptions.
Nobody is a perfect girl’s girl. But don’t you think that it would be much easier to be one when you lead with love instead of judgment?
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