Growing up, the cool girls were not the girls who hung out with their Girl Scout troop on the weekends or made home music videos to Dream and Hoku songs. The cool girls did not play with plastic horses on the playground or have No Boys Allowed birthday parties at the mall. Cool girls were one of the guys.
Growing up, girls were in constant competition to leave the girly clique and be accepted by the boys as one of their own. It didn't matter if we played soccer in the local league because we were playing with girls. It didn't matter if we had the newest shoes or shiniest lip gloss because we were only queen of the girls, which didn't hold a candle to being one of the boys.
Growing up, I had handfuls of guy friends, but no matter how hard I tried to run alongside them, I was still a girl and I couldn't really hang if it wasn't one-on-one. Our conversations were mostly about how they could talk to other girls or about things I could be doing better to attract boys--you know, because I was such a weird girl. I was weird because of my affinity for vintage clothing at the age of twelve and because I wore bracelets up to my elbows on both arms. I was weird because I sketched drawings of dresses on my history notes and wrote poems to a late Jim Morrison in language arts. I was weird because I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up and it didn't involve being married with children.
Even in college, no matter how much effort I put into my writing and my outfits for me, I was still trying to compete for the attention of my male peers. I wanted to workshop stories with the boys in the class and have them compliment my shoes too. The women in my classes were just as talented--if not more--as the boys, but I never felt the same longing to earn their respect.
Since I've started style blogging, the dynamic is totally different. I'm surrounded (through the Interwebz!) by thousands of women sharing their stories and style through blogging platforms around the world. Not only are we asking for a man's opinion, but we aren't necessarily concerned with whether or not they care that we blog in the first place. Style blogging isn't a Girls Only club, but the community self-selects individuals who encourage women to do their thing, whatever it is, without living up to a patriarchal expectation. If anything, women are expected to speak and choose, and when we don't, we are encouraged by the community to find our voice.
Sisterhood has long been my most important virtue; my religion. In my last few semesters of college, I left behind trying to be one of the guys and embraced my positive female friendships. No longer did I waste my time trying to impress people who would support me regardless. I'm not saying that men and women can't support one another, but there is something special and magical and remarkable about Sisterhood and strength in quality relationships with other women simply because we are women.
For those of you who are going through the transition between college and the real world--or any transition for that matter, at any age--I so recommend finding a support system of people who love you unconditionally. In the documentary Miss Representation, Rachel Maddow has a wonderful moment where she is talking about joining the news and political industry to find a community of women who want to see her succeed. She says "One of the things that really surprised me was the number of women in positions of power in television who reached out to me and said 'Can I take you out to breakfast? Can I take you out to lunch? Can I make sure that you have my phone number and email address in case anything comes up?'"
Isn't that crazy empowering? Not only do these women want her to do well, but by accepting her into their club they want to help her succeed and stand by to cheer her on. This kind of support is only present in a few industries. For instance, unlike the rap game where only Nicki or Azelia is allowed to be on top, women in comedy don't limit themselves to only one funny woman at a time. Tina and Amy don't ask Paul Rudd or Alec Baldwin if they are allowed to star in movies together. In fact, they don't even need a male co-star to make the movie successful.
I can only hope that someday we'll be able to dictate our own success in whatever field we choose and that all of us, no matter our gender, will be there to cheer each other on.Labels: blog community, comedy, community, fashion bloggers, feminism, friendship, girls, ifb, real talk, sisterhood, style bloggers
