I know the cool thing to do is to shit on people who say things like “I’m not like other girls, but you have to remember that usually, “I’m not like other girls” starts with other girls saying “You’re not like us.”
You don’t have to encourage it, but please try for some compassion. The people who say this aren’t saying it because they hate women or whatever SJ-flavored excuse the population of Tumblr is using to justify their harassment this week.
They’re doing it because when you’ve been kicked around and bullied and abused all your life, sometimes you have to take the things people hate about you and turn them into a source of pride instead of a source of shame.
And when you’re repeatedly ostracized and told that you’re unlovable, defective, weird, and a billion other things because your personality and your interests don’t match the dominant perspective of those around you, you have two choices:
1) you can blend in, try to be what they want, and lose a little bit of yourself in the process, or
2) you can stand up, put your hands on your hips, and say “You know what, you’re right. I’m NOTHING like you, and after the way you’ve treated me, I wouldn’t want to be.”
Of course, there are more than two choices. But for this post, please assume the mindset of a 13-17 year old person-assumed-to-be-a-girl, who has been majorly fucked over by the people who are supposed to be their peer group. They’re only going to see those two choices.
In addition– and I can’t believe I forgot to mention this until the end, honestly, because this is really a pretty common thing– “Not Like Other Girls” people are often not girls at all, and don’t have any other way of expressing that.
What I’m trying to say here is that in many cases, “not like other girls” is a REACTION to cruelty, that sometimes manifests as cruelty itself. But this reaction only gets stronger when it’s attacked. So, the logical solution is to STOP ATTACKING IT. “Not Like Other Girls” kids deserve kindness and support. They deserve to be reassured that they don’t have to be feminine or even identify as female if they don’t want to, and that you won’t ostracize them for it like everyone else has done.
Definitely. I was a “not like other girls” kid… because I was ruthlessly bullied for being “weird.” As someone with neurodivergences, a handful of trauma-caused mental illnesses, and who SURPRISE (to no one but me apparently) is actually a trans guy, I felt so alienated and isolated that I was honestly just trying to put words to my experience. I wasn’t like other girls because I wasn’t a girl, but that wasn’t something I was allowed to even consider in my home growing up.
I claimed that as a source of pride when I was younger because the only girls I knew were mean, manipulative and intentionally cruel to me, so to me, that was a good thing that I wasn’t like them.
I’ve since matured a whole hell of a lot, met some genuinely incredible friends, I’m engaged to an amazing woman who I can’t imagine my life without, I’m an outspoken feminist and ally, and my mindset has done a full 180 because I’ve been exposed to so many more people and situations.
If someone had attacked me as being mean and sexist and horrible as a kid though, I probably would have dug in my heels and doubled down because in my small experience full of very painful associations, not being like other girls was something I had to reclaim after having the very same words wielded as a weapon against me.
Trying to stop something like that with even more attacks will never work because it’s born from pain and isolation and exclusion and being told they weren’t “enough” to be part of the group. Isolation hurts. Telling people how awful they are for doing what they see as defending themselves against that pain will just make them claim those labels harder.
(image is the gif of Merida from Brave doing a big swooping gesture to the word “THIS”)