“You’re not like the typical girl.”
“It is so hard to find a down to earth girl that isn’t into her looks and stuff.”
“Where are all the cool girls?”
What exactly does it mean to be “the typical girl?” I, myself, am guilty of using terms like this and have allowed them to influence the way I view myself and other women around me. As women, we are automatically placed into one of several specific categories without our consent: the superficial girly girl, the nerdy and awkward girl, or the intellectual girl with depth who “isn’t like the others.” As I have struggled with my identity and self-acceptance over the years and have thought more and more about the kind of person I want to be, I have realized how much power I’ve given to these labels.
I consider myself what we as a society like to call “down-to-earth:” a person who cares deeply about others and about social and environmental justice and someone who will fight for what is right. I grew up with an appreciation for the outdoors and I have a hunger for learning new things. But I also enjoy the luxuries and activities that many people associate with the “superficial girly girl.” I like to get my nails done and, as far as I’m concerned, one can never have too many skin care products. I love experimenting with clothes and I don’t have one particular style; sometimes I like to look more feminine and polished while other times I throw on a messy assortment of thrift store finds. I could watch stupid celebrity interviews for hours and, yes, like almost every other millennial, I can get carried away with social media from time to time. But, for some reason, I’ve always felt I need to hide that side of me so that I won’t be perceived as “the typical girl” or somehow lose the rights to the label of “down-to-earth.” I have worried that the other side of me will be forgotten and I’ll be misunderstood and judged.
I recently watched a 2009 Ted Talk given by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie called “The Danger of a Single Story.” In this brilliant talk Adichie talks about how impressionable people are when presented a story, particularly as children. She speaks about how in her move from Nigeria to attend university in the United States, she began to understand the comments Americans made to her about Africa and where they came from and how harmful they were. She says, “if all I knew about Africa were from popular images, I too would think that Africa was a place of …. incomprehensible people fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty and AIDS, unable to speak for themselves and waiting to be saved by a kind white foreigner.” This single story of Africa that has been been shown to us over and over again has saturated the Western mind and allows us to turn an entire continent of complex human beings and cultures into one homogenous and backwards group. When we use terms for the purpose of simplification and categorization, we turn the complex beings we are into something simple and unchanging that can be defined in 140 characters or less. We ignore and erase the facets and layers of ourselves that make us so spectacular. This is precisely what happens with the labels we use to describe women. And the most concerning part is that women begin to believe in these labels and give them power.
It has taken me a long time to reject these categorizations and take back my own power to decide who I am. It is still a process and I cannot say that I have completely freed myself from the grasp of the false expectations and truly ridiculous rules that come along with these labels. But I will continue to be, like every other woman I know, a strong, intelligent, caring bad-ass who ALSO likes to have flawless skin and fleeky nails. It is about time this new generation of women shows the world that we are more than just one stereotype or story.
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