'Not like other girls' to 'girl’s girl': divorcing my internalised misogyny

The way society alters and internalizes our meaning of what it is to be 'feminine'

Barbora Pacherova
8th November 2023
Image credit: @ohurtsov, Pixabay
The inevitable part of growing up is looking back at your child and teenage self, recoiling in horror once you see everything that you used to do. Most times it’s just silly, but sometimes it makes you angry and hateful, disgusted by the false image the world has created for us.

As a little girl, I didn’t want to be one. I wasn’t a mindless doll with no aspirations, who cared for nothing but her appearance - because that’s what girls were. The world made me believe being a woman meant I was stupid, shallow and annoying, and that femininity was something to be ashamed of, but I had hobbies, passions and other priorities than being pretty. I was not like other girls.

The world made me believe being a woman meant I was stupid, shallow and annoying, and that femininity was something to be ashamed of

Society taught me how to hate women before I even knew what it meant, and I hated the woman in me before she had the opportunity to grow. It made me think that I was better, and I grew hateful and jealous of all those who didn’t fall victim to such ideas.

It all changed gradually – slowly I got to see girls for who they truly are and not as what they were painted out to be. I believed they were all the same, without originality – one just like the other. The truth was, that women are like snowflakes – all of them unique and beautiful in their way and together they can create something amazing.

The truth was, that women are like snowflakes – all of them unique and beautiful in their way and together they can create something amazing.

I fell in love with womanhood, with what it means to be a girl, with borrowing each other’s make-up, with enjoying romantic movies and gossiping, and finding beauty in the little things. I fell in love with being a woman, with the unspoken solidarity with others I can always rely on, the heart-to-heart conversations in women’s restrooms that make you feel like you truly belong, even among strangers.

The younger me would hate the current me, she would think I became the very thing we hated although we had no reason to. But to me, she would be just a little girl, whom the world persuaded into thinking she would be less of a person for being a woman; when the exact opposite is true.

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