Cool Girl--you've definitely heard of her. She's everywhere. She first became known after Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl made the term popular, but she has subtly and dangerously crept into our social consciousness for years now. In basic terms,
Cool Girl is the manifestation of the male fantasy (that is, the heteronormative male fantasy that it spoon fed to males daily), a girl who is both naturally hot and sexy and seemingly into all things sports, video games, etc. She does not ever complain, she loves to hang with the "bros," and she always wants to have sex. Boy, what a woman!
But Cool Girl isn't all fun and games. Yes, many women do love the aforementioned things, and there is no judgment surrounding women that love what our still very binary culture deems as "masculine," but what is problematic is the woman who is solely an extension of the male desire, which is what Cool Girl really is.
A woman who feels afraid to express how she is truly feeling in fear of losing her partner. A woman who is constantly performing. The insidious thing about Cool Girl is that she doesn't actually have a mind of her own--instead, she is a formula meant to be devoid of real human emotion and flaws. Cool Girl may exist, but she shouldn't.
Women no longer should feel the pressure to conform to the ideals that Cool Girl has laid out. The idea of her must no longer be fed by us. Why should we have to be her anyway? She is impossibly constricting, sucking out one's ability to think autonomously. So I say F*CK COOL GIRL.
I am not Cool Girl--instead, I am a woman who believes that her inherent worth is not reliant on the ability to please a man. Instead, I am a woman who has her own wants and desires, who refuses to be another cog in the misogynistic machine.
And yes, I can do this whilst eating a hot dog and watching football and loving sex, but no, I will not be doing this for the sake of any man. I will be eating and watching and fuc*ing because I want to.
The work of eliminating Cool Girl does not rely solely on women. Men are equally responsible for perpetuating this performative model, and this needs to come to a stop as well. If everyone is aware of her dangerous presence and what she actually signifies, then maybe we can start putting an end to her for good.
Eventually, the woman of "Gone Girl" cracks at the pressure of having to constantly be the perfect wife, the perfect cool girl. May we learn from her breakdown that Cool Girl is, in reality, not even that cool.
