That Kind of Girl

I'm just a girl, take a good look at me

Just your typical prototype

~No Doubt

Let me preface this by saying that I really like each song/book/movie that I refer to in this post. In fact, I only chose songs/books/movies that I liked so as to avoid a huge bias against artists I didn’t like. I think every artist mentioned in this post has some wonderful things to say, often about feminism as well.

Let me also mention here that this post contains the word “awesome” more often than is necessary.

I’ve been noticing an unsettling trend in songs and books and movies, and that is:

Awesome heroines are awesome because they are not like other girls.

Y’all, what’s up with that? You know what I’m talking about.

The girl who hangs with the boys and doesn’t care about makeup is too often awesome BECAUSE she hangs with the boys and doesn’t care about makeup. I’m not saying she needs to care about makeup, but I cannot accept that the only way a girl can be awesome is in opposition to femininity.*

And let’s be honest, how many times have you heard/used the phrase “not that kind of girl”? As if that phrase even means anything. There are no “kinds” of girls. Consider the description: The kind of girl who hangs out in bars. Now, I’m going to make a generalization here, but I’d wager that many (if not most) people understand what’s really being said here. They make the inference that the kind of girl who hangs out in bars is also the kind of girl who:

- sleeps with someone on the first date

- wears too much makeup

- wants to have sex with as many guys as possible outside the context of a relationship

- steals other girls’ boyfriends

- etc.

(All of these things can be interchanged – once you know she’s the kind of girl who sleeps with someone on the first date, you also know she’s the kind of girl who hangs out in bars.)

The big understanding here is of course that once you know she hangs out in bars, you also know other things about her. I would like to put forward the notion that no, you don’t. Not to mention that the kind of girl who sleeps with someone on the first date might only have done it that one time, and besides that, what the hell is so wrong with sleeping with someone on the first date? These are not kinds of people. You cannot reasonably make any of the inferences I just did by knowing where someone spends her typical Friday night.

Another problem here is the assumption that once you know one of the above points about said girl, you also know everything you need to know about said girl.

Consider this next description: The kind of girl who likes swimming. What does this tell us about her? That she likes swimming. And nothing more. Anyone can see that the like of swimming implies almost nothing else aside from the fact that she’s not afraid of water. No one would draw the conclusion that because she likes swimming she also likes kickboxing. Or worse, that because she likes swimming, she steals other girls’ boyfriends.

What’s particularly disturbing, is that I often see this trend in songs/books/movies that actually do have a good feminist message as well.

Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins) quickly became one of my favourite characters of all time, as long-time readers of this blog will know.** I have not seen such a fully developed character in fiction in a long time. I liked how she thought, I like what she did, and even when I disagreed with her actions, I understood why she did them. I’m always wary about heroine who kick-ass in terms of physical ability because so often she falls into the “not like other girls” category. As in, she can beat people up, therefore she is awesome. But Katniss is awesome for many, many reasons. Katniss just rocks.

Only. There is one small passage in one of the books, even though I can’t find the quote right now (I’d re-read the books, but, God, I need to make myself wait to re-read). It’s something like how Katniss has trouble talking to the other girls at her school because she doesn’t have much of an opinion about girly subjects. This is by no means the exact quote – the “girly” subjects are actually more precise in the text, but I don’t want to mis-remember and say something like “fashion” or “gossip” when that’s not actually the case.*** It was only one line in many, but it sounded a little like not like other girls which of course, I automatically flinch at.

Another example is Katsa in Graceling by Kristen Cashore. Katsa is Graced with a superior fighting ability. As you read on, you learn that Katsa isn’t into husbands or babies or fashion or appearances (Not like other girls? Maybe, maybe not…). Again, I’m not trying to say that I dislike characters who don’t want husbands, babies or the latest couture. I just want to make sure this is not being used as their ultimate source of awesomeness. Awesomeness does not come from wanting or not wanting a husband.

Anyway. So Katsa goes to dinner one day at a royal function. Her servant has talked her into getting dressed up for the event. Katsa sits at the dinner becoming more and more frustrated with her uncle, the King, but especially with the uncomfortable pins in her hair. She eventually leaves the dinner early because she can’t deal with the awfulness of these two combined things. As she leaves, she notes the fancy shoes that hurt her feet. She wants to throw her earrings into the fountain. Again, I have nothing against this. Who wants a painful hairdo? What bothered me was that a few pages later, Katsa is in a fight, gets her face ripped open by her opponent’s ring, and doesn’t notice it until someone points it out.

Really? The girl who noticed painful shoes doesn’t notice a gash in her face? I find that … difficult to believe, even knowing what I do about the end of the book. I don’t know if her hatred of these “girly” activities and clothing was a way to make her cool, but it kind of sounds that way to me. Which is a pity, because while the book annoyed me for the first quarter or so, I loved it by the end. It’s a really good book. Katsa is really awesome. And not for the reasons listed above.

“Not that kind of girl” syndrome bleeds in to the music industry as well. While I love Taylor Swift’s music to pieces, I can’t get around the lyrics and video to the song, ‘You Belong With Me’. It’s catchy, and the premise of the video is super cute, but it has some unfortunate lyrics:

She wears short skirts/ I wear t-shirts

She wears high heels/ I wear sneakers

She’s cheer-captain/ And I’m on the bleachers

In a song telling a guy that his girlfriend sucks and he should get with the narrator, doesn’t it sound like these descriptions of the bad girlfriend are reasons why she’s a bad girlfriend? And don’t the descriptions of the narrator sound like reasons why she’s awesome in contrast? One can be awesome and wear t-shirts at the same time, just like one can be awesome and wear short skirts at the same time. Maybe the bad girlfriend is really a bad girlfriend (“she doesn’t get your humour like I do”), but I can’t get behind the reasoning that she’s a bad girlfriend because she wears short skirts.

If you think that I’m reading too much into it, check out this link to the video (and pay particular attention to what the two girls are wearing, especially in the last scene of the video):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuNIsY6JdUw

Even the fact that Bad Girlfriend and Heroine are played by the same person suggests that what each of them does is in opposition to each other. The angel/devil metaphor. And is it just me, or does Bad Girlfriend really come across as the kind of girl who sleeps with someone on the first date?

And speaking of the angel/devil thing, check out this song by Pink: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR4yQFZK9YM

This last song I actually take serious offense to. Why? Because it’s called, ‘Stupid Girls’. This song touches on the serious problem of girls who are made to feel like all their worth is in their appearances and their relationship to other men. I find this utterly tragic, and incidentally, I think Pink does too. Unfortunately, Pink’s solution is to dismiss the victims of this problem as stupid. She also dismisses all women as stupid. Wearing skimpy clothes? Stupid. A push-up bra? Stupid. Bulimic? Stupid. Filming yourself having sex? Stupid.^ Getting over-excited at bowling? Stupid, stupid.

Um, no. Hell, no.

The sexist, unreasonable pressures put on women are stupid. But the women themselves? NOT STUPID. If you were to believe everything in the song and video, you might believe that the only way to be not stupid is to dress conservatively, run for president, and/or get over-excited at football.

I understand that Pink probably does have a problem with the pressures put on women to act stupid and more sexual than they are comfortable with and be impossibly pretty, even at the gym. Of course. It’s a problem.

The solution is not to blame the girls themselves. The solution, dare I say, is to help girls feel like they’re okay. That nothing’s wrong with them. That they’re not stupid.

Pink, please recognize that feminism doesn’t need another ally telling girls (even just some of them) that they’re not okay.

Feminism doesn’t need any of it.

I did take a step back to notice that I’ve only critiqued the works of women of this post. I said at the beginning that I tried to only mention artists whom I liked, and I hope this means that this whole post doesn’t have a woman-hating feel to it just because I wasn’t saying anything against men. I could say something against certain men, many men, even. But I won’t, and it’s not because they’re men. It’s mostly because I love these books and songs by women, but I’m frustrated that I can’t love them quite as much as I want to. Because I like supporting women, and seeing rich, powerful, talented women. Women who create and speak their minds are all kinds of awesome. I think Suzanne Collins, Kristen Cashore, Taylor Swift and Pink are all really awesome.

I just want my entertainment with a little less insult to my lifestyle and the lifestyles of almost every girl in existence. I wear high heels and short skirts. I’ve owned a push-up bra. I’ve discussed fashion with my girlfriends and had lots of fun dressing up all pretty for parties. I don’t want to run for president, and I don’t have any interest in football or wearing t-shirts (Seriously. I prefer to know where I stand with my sleeves – give me all or nothing). I like hanging out in bars sometimes, and whom I do what with on a first date is nobody’s Goddamned business.

What does that say about me? Exactly that and nothing more.

I have a degree and I’ve spent Saturday nights studying. I like playing hockey and playing the piano. I’ve gone to the gym in sweatpants and I avoid makeup in my daily routine. I am firmly opposed to the existence of tanning beds.

What does that say about me? Exactly that and nothing more.

This checklist of things I’ve done in my life does not make me necessarily smart and it definitely doesn’t make me stupid. And there’s a whole checklist of things I haven’t mentioned because I can’t actually write out my entire life story. Besides, despite my tiny readership, this is still a public blog, and I’m not going to just expose all my secrets like that. I’m not that kind of girl.

I'm just looking to live my life the best way I know how. I think we're all trying for this. It's time we recognize that.

* Femininity is a broad definition, I understand.

** Because you are my immediate family

*** During my next re-read, I will edit this post to give the exact quote.

^ I’m pretty sure Murphy’s Law still guarantees that any sex video is going to be seen by someone other than the parties on camera. Just something to keep in mind if you’re going to do it – it doesn’t make you stupid, though. (Also, why is there the implication that only the girl in that sex video is stupid?)