The “Chill Girl”: She always looks perfect, lives off of greasy food, constantly watches Sports Center, is always down to party and never gets upset. She’s “one of the guys.” She is what some men view as the perfect woman as she doesn’t bother them “like other girls do.” She also absolutely does not exist.
Although I didn’t know it at the time, I first felt pressured to be chill when I watched the opinionated, sassy and funny parts of many of my female friends wither and die in the presence of their middle school crushes and the same thing happen to me when I had my first huge crush. It wasn’t until I got to high school and discovered Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl” and the rising criticism of the “cool girl” trope that someone put that feeling into words.
I saw proof of this expectation to be chill when I was called “difficult” for sharing my feminist values in high school. Even though I was aware that the chill girl persona was a sexist fantasy, I still found myself morphing my personality into the “chill girl” persona so that no one would ever call me difficult again. However, I am finally ready to confidently declare that I am not a “chill girl” and neither are you.
I am not alone in this realization. Many modern women are coming to the conclusion that the “chill girl” persona that we feel pressured to adopt doesn’t actually exist and owning the fact that we do not fit into this role.
In an episode of Emma Chamberlain’s podcast Everything Goes, she claimed that she doesn’t believe that anyone is cool, that we all have parts of ourselves that are embarrassing or weird. TikTok creators such as Maalvika Bhat have called for the “death of the chill girl.” Recent TV shows such as Fleabag and books such as Sally Rooney’s Normal People have challenged the expectation for women to be “chill” and demonstrated the true female experience with female leads that are not “chill” by any means as their characters can be emotional, difficult or even unlikeable at times.
So, why do so many women feel pressured to adopt the “chill girl” persona?
At risk of sounding too much like Amy Dunne’s “cool girl” monologue from Gone Girl, many women adopt the chill girl persona in response to misogyny.
In my experience and in many of my female friends’ experiences, you can go from being called “chill” to being called a “bi*ch,” with one wrong objection, opinion or emotion. There have been many times when I’ve met men or even in past relationships when I have found myself holding my tongue when I wanted to share my opinions or feelings, let someone put an unwelcome arm around me or stopped myself from communicating what I wanted all with the goal of seeming “chill.” Even if I knew the men I was around did not expect me to be a “chill girl,” I still felt the ever-present pressure to seem aloof and fun in front of men.
Media is another contributor towards women feeling pressured to be chill.
Within the past decade, pop culture has identified that the “cool girl” often found in movies, books and TV written by men as a misogynistic trope that should no longer be used in writing. We’ve seen “cool girls” like Robin in How I Met Your Mother and Mikaela in Transformers. “Cool girl” characters are portrayed in media that many of us consumed in our formative years and they have set an unrealistic expectation for women in which their personality is only likable if they fit into this specific, uncomfortable fantasy that is impossible to sustain.
Although I have found myself becoming envious of these “cool girls” in media, I have always admired and found comfort in characters that real women could relate to; characters such as Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City or Leslie Nope from Parks and Recreation that own every part of their personality including their traits that may not be the most attractive or likable by society’s standards for women.
I am not saying that there are not women who are inherently calm and confident or show interest in traditionally masculine activities and that they are doing so to be seen as more attractive to men. Nor am I saying that every man that is attracted to these women is a misogynist. However, a problem arises when women are only viewed as acceptable when they don’t show emotion, share their opinions, set boundaries or express their femininity. Even the most confident, calm and fun woman on the planet will have an aspect of her personality that does not fit into the “chill girl” model as this is human nature.
There are parts of my personality that are mellow, but there are other parts that are admittedly a bit crazy. I obsessively clean my room for about 3 hours every Sunday. I rehearse most conversations before I have them, if someone doesn’t give me at least 3 hours to prepare for a social event, I probably won’t go and I convince myself that all of my friends hate me at least once a week.
The theory of the “chill girl” and why women feel pressured to adopt this persona can become complicated, but it boils down to an oppressive expectation for both women and men that has been sustained for centuries: showing emotion or expressing your needs makes you “difficult,” or “crazy.”
However, when we recognize that the “chill girl” is a patriarchal fantasy, we can come to realize that expressing our boundaries, opinions and emotions does not make us “difficult,” it makes us strong.
We may still sometimes feel the urge to hide parts of our personalities when we see “chill girls only” on someone’s tinder profile, but it’s time for both men and women to understand that the world misses out on so many complex, messy, beautiful female personalities when women contort our personalities to fit into this uncomfortable fantasy.
The reality is that that female personalities are not as polar as grouping us into “chill girls” or “crazy b*tches.” Women are beautiful, strong, funny, opinionated, smart and complex and we must respect who we truly are enough to say “If being my authentic self makes me a crazy b*tch, then call me a crazy b*tch.”