“If you haven’t noticed, I’m a woman now. I wear a bra!” — Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging.
I’ve been a teenage girl for seven years. This week, I’m officially aging out, and I have a few things to say about that.
When I look back at my 13-year-old self and the woman I’m becoming, of course I cringe. I had blue braces and a secret viral fanfiction account. I played the same songs on repeat from boy bands my friends loved, and my fashion choices were…let’s say, a work in progress.
But honestly? I kind of miss her.
Because somewhere along the way, growing up became synonymous with being embarrassed by the girl you used to be. We cringe at the fit checks of our old outfits, our questionable crushes, and the things we once loved so loudly.
We often turn our teen years into an awkward phase. One we somehow survived rather than a whole big chapter of us that created who we are.
And I wonder why.
Why are teen girls’ passions so easily dismissed as ridiculous? Why are our feelings reduced to a hormonal imbalance, our friendships dismissed for drama, and our confidence mistaken for shallowness?
If boys will be boys, wearing their favorite players’ jerseys, hanging out with “the boys” and living off a YOLO mindset, then let girls be girls! Let us figure ourselves out without society always ready to offer an unsolicited opinion on what we wear, how we act, and what we should have outgrown by now.
I’m not saying teen girls are always innocent. We are human. We make mistakes, hurt people’s feelings, and sometimes we get way too caught up in the moment with things that won’t matter five years from now. But we also deserve the freedom to be wrong, learn, and grow without our existence becoming a punchline or being labeled.
So, before I blow out the candles on my twentieth birthday, here are a few things I want to defend about being a teen girl.
In Defense of Loving pink
Yes, pink is my favorite color, and no, that’s not something I plan to outgrow.
If Elle Woods and Barbie have taught me anything, it’s that you can love pink, love it loudly, and still deserve to be taken seriously. You can know all about fashion and still have ambitions that extend way beyond appearance. Liking a color doesn’t make you shallow and wearing pink doesn’t mean you’re immature.
Growing up and being treated like “not like other girls” was often seen as a compliment. Some of us learned to distance ourselves from everything traditionally feminine for fear of being boxed into a stereotype. I know I have had a complicated relationship with pink, especially as a natural blonde girl, because I was worried about what that would say about me.
Eventually, though, I realized I love pink. To me, pink symbolizes love, compassion, and emotional warmth. One of the clubs I’m in every time I show up, they always say I am in my signature color, as I always go to meetings wearing something pink. If given the option of getting something in any color, I will usually always get the pink option as well.
Of course, pink isn’t everyone’s thing. Maybe you’d choose red over pink any day of the week, or maybe you’re a blue girly. That’s the point: being a girl doesn’t come with a dress code and growing up shouldn’t mean you have to abandon things you like just because you want to be taken more seriously.
Need I remind you of President Barbie’s pink suit from the Barbie movie or Elle Woods’ iconic pink dress she wore as a lawyer in court?
In Defense of Being Unreasonably Obsessed
I have a theory that every teen girl has at least one thing she loves with an absolutely unreasonable amount of passion.
Maybe it’s a book fandom, a TV series, a band, fashion, or knowing an unreasonable amount about a particular hobby.
Though somewhere along the way, ‘fangirl’ became an insult, as if loving something too much were embarrassing. But being a fan means caring enough to show up, learn every quote or lyric, wear the merch, and find a community that cares just as much as you do.
Some of us grew up with One Direction fan accounts, some handing out Eras Tour friendship bracelets, and others spent their years in the Twilight fandom debating Team Edward or Team Jacob. There’s something so special about loving a world so much you want to share it with others.
My cousin got a Go Bills! tattoo on her inner lip when she turned 18. One of my friends has cars lining her bedroom walls. This Halloween, I dressed up as Allie Hayes in her J.Lo costume from Off-Campus and ended up connecting with other girls who loved the same series.
Honestly, I think that’s what makes girlhood so fun. You don’t have to share someone’s interests to understand what it feels like to be passionate about something. Sometimes, all you need is someone who gets it, someone who gets excited because you’re excited.
Sometimes, loving something is how you find your people.
I’ve found community through my love of music on my college radio station and connected with other girls who also love writing through my college newspaper; to me, there’s nothing more fun than bonding over a shared interest.
So why should we be embarrassed by how much we care? Girls are often made fun of for the things they love, especially when those interests are associated with other girls. Yet nobody expects a boy to apologize for drafting his fantasy football roster, rambling about cars, or getting a video game tattoo.
So we can have our fandoms, too. We can go to concerts, rewatch our comfort show, and wear our favorite merch. We can get excited about the things we love and love them loudly.
You don’t have to justify what makes you happy to enjoy it.
In Defense of Girl Friendships
There is something so special about having girls that get you in a way no one else does.
The girls who know your entire lore, have helped you through relationship and home issues, and can tell something is wrong just by the way you text. The girls you can debrief after a night out, ask whether your crush likes you back or how your outfit looks, or tell them the same story for the hundredth time until you get over it.
Girls who make getting ready for parties sometimes more fun than the night out, girls to go shopping with, do arts and crafts with, and go to concerts with. Girls who will hype you up when you need a confidence boost and be honest when you need a reality check. The girls who make you feel a little like you’re in The Sisterhood of Traveling Pants.
Of course, girl friendships aren’t always friendship bracelets and inside jokes. Mean Girls exists for a reason. Girls can be mean to each other, friendships can grow apart, and sometimes a friendship is only meant for a season.
But I hate how often girl friendships simply get reduced to drama. How many times have we heard that girls are catty, jealous, or incapable of getting along? When in reality we can bond with a stranger in a club bathroom in five minutes and walk out with their Instagram?
As if boys never gossip, argue, or hurt each other’s feelings?
Even when girls do get along, we are quick to write off those friendships as shallow or fake. In reality, some of my favorite moments of being a teenager have always been shared with my girls: The car debriefs. The parties. The inside jokes that make absolutely no sense outside our friend group. The texts and calls with friends who live far away.
So here’s to the girls who hype you up, take pictures together, debrief the same situation until you’re over it, and dance through life’s storms.
If being a teen girl is about coming of age, I’m so lucky to have beautiful, smart, capable women to grow up with alongside.
In Defense of Feeling Everything
If there’s one thing teen girls are known for, it’s being “dramatic.”
But if you really want to complain about how much a teen girl seems to be feeling, take a second to consider everything she’s going through.
Bodies are changing, hormones are fluctuating, and suddenly, there is a whole new set of expectations placed on the way we look, dress, and act. Teen girls are navigating crushes, intimate miles, academic pressure, and the latest trends while keeping up with classes, an active social life, and whatever personal struggles they might be facing. Oh, and by the way, all while bleeding for a few days every month.
Meanwhile, you’re still growing up and learning how to navigate it all and communicate your feelings in healthy ways. You’re expected to act mature while still figuring out what maturity even looks like. And on top of that, apparently, girls mature faster? So, yeah, it’s a lot.
But why should that make those feelings any less valid?
You’re allowed to be upset over a friendship breakup. You’re allowed to feel insecure while surrounded by impossible beauty standards, all while still learning how to use eyeliner. You’re allowed to get excited about a crush, feel devastated by rejection or feel overwhelmed by the looming future. You don’t have to act like everything is fine just because someone else thinks it’s not a big deal.
Teen girls aren’t just dramatic for the sake of being dramatic, even if we look back at ourselves with the benefit of hindsight and wonder if we were. I mean, why did I ruin so much mascara?
But really, teen girls are growing up, changing, learning, and experiencing so many things for the first time. Maybe instead of judging them for how they act, we should give them more room to feel it.
After all, they are teenagers!
In Defense of Teen Girls
As I turn 20, I think it’s time to stop treating teenage girlhood like something we need to recover from. I don’t want to look back at the girl I’ve been for the last seven years and feel embarrassed. She was figuring things out. She was finding things to love, people to love, and pieces of herself she would carry into the next chapter of her life.
She didn’t know everything, and she wasn’t supposed to. Neither are you.
So let girls love pink. Let them obsess over their favorite bands, make lifelong friendships, cry to Olivia Rodrigo songs, and change their minds about who they want to be a hundred times, sometimes all in one day. Let them be loud, emotional, ambitious, awkward, confident, and everything in between. Let them feel everything so deeply for perhaps it is a gift to be able to feel everything so much.
Let them grow up without making them feel like they constantly need to be labeled or ashamed of who they are.
And if boys will be boys, then let girls be girls. But always remember there is so much more to be than simply, “just a girl.”
I hope that, no matter how old we get, we’ll look back at girlhood and remember all of it. Yes, even the embarrassing outfits we can’t believe we left the house in or the battles we fought that left bloody tampons in the bathroom trash. But I also hope we remember how much we loved, how hard we tried, how we showed up for one another, and how exciting it was to discover what it felt like to be alive.
I hope we remember that girl and thank her for getting us here. Then I hope we buy her whatever fancy coffee drink she wants and ask if she’d like to take a trip down memory lane at the mall where she got her ears pierced at 14.