Why You Should Stop Saying “I’m/You’re Not Like Other Girls”
The issue of internalized sexism, explained in one significant example
Growing up, I always thought being different was what I should aspire for. I wanted to become the main character of a coming of age movie, where I would always hang out with the boy group, girls would make fun of me for it and where my love interest would come up and tell me “You’re so unlike other girls and that’s why I like you”.
Don’t get me wrong, being different is great, but the reasons I was doing it for were wrong. I didn’t want to be “not like other people”, I wanted to be “not like other GIRLS”.
Because right duh? Why would you want to be like most girls? Other girls are so boring being into fashion and makeup, why wanting to be like that, yuck, right?
It’s after listening to Hailee Steinfeld’s song “Most Girls” that I understood my mistake and since then I spend my energy trying to educate other people on the issue of internalized sexism.
So, what’s the problem with the “I’m/you’re not like other girls”?
The issues with the expression
1. It insinuates girls are all the same
“Other girls” what does that even mean? Do “other girls” all have the same identifiable characteristics that make people want to avoid them?
The simple answer is NO. Every person is different and there are so many individual people that putting all girls in the same basket is extremely degrading.
But what this expression implies is that these main characteristics we should avoid are all linked to “femininity”.
2. It insinuates being “feminine” is a bad thing
What’s wrong with “other girls” are the typical feminine traits portrayed in society, such as makeup, fashion, being emotional, being clingy in relationships … By listening to that expression we understand that we have to avoid this “cliché” of femininity and that’s internalized sexism. It’s when women start refusing to be feminine, not because they want to but because it is seen as an obstacle to success. On the other side, they want to get closer to masculine traits because it’s seen as the “right” or “correct” way to do it.
But what make girls think they should avoid being feminine?
From a young age, we teach girls that to succeed they have to hide their female traits. For instance, when looking at the main female characters in movies and books, girls draw the correlation between the feminine stay at home mom, who falls in love with a great guy and revolves her life around him, and the boyish New York girl who goes on an adventure and succeed by herself. You want to become the weird Girl Boss who invented Nasty Gal, not the clingy Gabrielle Solis from Desperate Housewives.
This rejection of female characteristics can be observed differently throughout a women’s life.
In middle school, it’s the relationship of girls with the color pink that shows the first rejection of femininity. After years of wearing pink in primary school, pink becomes one color most girls try to avoid in middle school because “you don’t want to be that cliché girly girl”.
Obviously, in this example, I’m not talking of the girl who genuinely hates pink, not at all. I am talking of the girls who don’t especially hate it but do so because they see femininity as something to avoid.
The key to comprehending internalized sexism is to correctly draw the line between women who don’t like feminine things (and respecting their taste) and those doing it because they internalized that to succeed you have to avoid femininity.
3. It creates competition between girls …
… often for male attention.
Do you want to be the “different girl” at school to get the super cool guy to notice you? You want to be the boyish girl at work so that you get integrated into the men’s group and get promoted before your female colleagues? You criticize the girl who doesn’t want to have sex on the first date because it’s so old school, today men are interested in surprisingly liberated women, right?
All of these thoughts are internalized sexism. Why do you want to be separated from other girls? Most of the time it’s to have a special spot in men’s attention.
We can notice this especially in traditionally male workplaces where women are a minority. When a new woman arrives, the ones who were there before feel threatened that she will steal the “female spot” in the company.
An example is the relationship between women in STEM fields in college. A lot of people deplore tensions and toxic relationships in these fields because most of the girls think there are only a limited number of spots for females. Therefore they try to tear each other apart and you might even hear phrases like “Why is she dressed like that, she shouldn’t be studying coding if she gives so much attention to her appearance. Coders don’t have time for that.”
What should we change then?
The way we portray women in cinema and the media
We have to start portraying more diverse successful feminine women in movies and on social media to break this false perception of femininity and success as two mutually exclusive things.
We also have to stop generalizing toxic girl relationships and women fighting with each other only to get the male protagonist’s attention. Cinema influences deeply the way young people perceive what is “normal” in their relationships. Showing mostly women fighting and competing for unhealthy goals impress young girls and paint the way they act in real life.
How about a successful programmer who’s fashionable? A physicist with a massive shoe collection? An emotional successful multi-millionaire CEO?
Equality at work
Gender equality at work also needs to improve a lot. The reasons women value male voice and opinions more in the workplace often has to do with the proportion of men in the high ranks of a company’s hierarchy.
Because there are fewer females on top, women tend to think they’ll have fewer spots and should have a harder time competing with each other to climb up the hierarchy.
In conclusion, let’s show women how to cooperate rather than glorifying women competing in an unhealthy way. If this is not your wish, stop defining yourself in opposition to the general portray of femininity as a way to get more recognition.
Internalized sexism doesn’t help. Women should support themselves, that’s how we will win the fight against sexism and gender inequality.
PS: In this article, I am not saying being different is bad, or should be avoided. As I said, everything relies on the reasons you are doing it rather than the fact that you are doing it. Respecting each other’s decisions and personal taste is key. But, we also have to understand the difference between our own intentions and societal stigmas manipulating our way of thinking.
