I was a pre-woman before I was a girl. Before I understood, I had to maintain outward innocence. Before I knew to bat my eyelashes and part my lips and say: “Oh, I’m so sorry I didn’t know,” I was a pre-woman. I knew what was waiting for me once my body aged, that I would be expected to embody smudged-mascara venus and virtuous Bambi at the same time. Big, pouting lips and narrowed, knowing eyes.
All women were pre-women before we were girls. Before we understood the significance of exiting childhood and losing the naiveté we did not even know we had, we were preparing for the after. We chose archetypes for ourselves from romantic comedies, cartoons, and even action movies. “What d’you think you’ll be like in high school?” We asked each other. Vixen or nerd? Mean girl or girl-next-door? Daphne or Ramona? Regina or Cady? You weren’t allowed to choose for yourself. Girls could not be trusted with that kind of self-determination on their own, but the collective could. Even in elementary school, we imagined how we would rework ourselves to fulfill male desires. In fourth grade, I got “Venus”. Sophia got a “model”. Emma got “damsel”. We didn’t get the chance to see ourselves as people before seeing ourselves as fantasies.
“We didn’t get the chance to see ourselves as people before we saw ourselves as fantasies.”
I remember elementary school and how girls my age talked about beauty, the guys we liked, and how to get them to like us back. We knew lash-fluttering, arm-touching tricks before boys our age knew what girls were for. But we knew what girls were for. We knew what boys wanted because magazines, Youtube videos, and movies had shown us what women and girls were supposed to look like, act like, be like. We wanted to be like Bratz dolls – at once static and flexible, ageless and mature. And we were ageless. We knew more about womanhood than any boys our age knew about being a man. So we waited for them to “grow up.” To become men in the most sinister sense – to want us in the callous, hard way we thought women were meant to be had. We were women trapped in the bodies of young girls, waiting for time to release us.
I remember feeling when I was younger that I couldn’t quite fit into girlhood, externally or internally. The rise of Instagram gifted me a long-lasting dissatisfaction with my external appearance, while my sexuality was in contradiction with everything I knew to be true about being a girl. Displays of female sexuality in media were practically non-existent. And when they did appear, they were characterized as embarrassing, slutty, and declassé. I knew from a young age that I actually wanted to do all the “dirty” romantic things that girls weren’t supposed to want. And I knew that it was wrong. However, at the same time that the media shamed women for publicly admitting to desire, it also demanded women secretly harbor it. It was the late 2000s, and pop culture was obsessed with the dichotomy of an innocent face and a filthy mouth. As a pre-woman, I was enthralled by my ability to fulfill that fantasy.
“…pop culture was obsessed with the dichotomy of an innocent face and a filthy mouth.”
This set me and other girls my age up for a delayed understanding of our own sexuality. We all knew girls didn’t actually want to make out, or get felt up, or go further because, in the movies, it was always something she did only when asked. Only when it was clear that he really wanted her too. Often the plot or their on-screen relationship, or even the fate of the world depended on her sexual compliance. Meanwhile, her endgame was to get him to ask for this without ever admitting to wanting it herself. Her chase ended when she got him to say “please.” His chase ended when he got her naked. No one talked about the sexuality and desires of women, and certainly not pre-pubescent girls. So, I was unaware that I was not alone. Realizing at a very young age that I actually wanted to do all the things shown to me in film and tv was surprising. Women and girls were only meant to be sexual beings externally, never internally. Fulfilling desire was okay. Having it was not. Back then, it felt like another way I didn’t quite fit into idealized womanhood. It felt like a secret.