I recently read a LinkedIn article titled "Why Young Female Leaders Must Reject The Thought: 'I'm Not Like Other Girls.'" by an amazing woman Kate Jung. It brought to light a subject that isn't discussed a lot in today's society.
As Kate stated in her article I felt like I was "different" while growing up. I rarely wore make-up. My friends are and have mostly been guys. I have never felt the need to work on maintaining a "perfect" body, only enough to keep me happy and healthy. I very rarely wondered about what the Kardashian's were keeping up with and I couldn't (and still can't) stand The Bachelor. (I find the premise hypocritical and confusing for both men and women but that's an idea for another day.)
"'Other girls' were vapid and emotional, thriving off petty drama and male attention. Me? I read books, played video games and excelled at mathematics." States Kate, and for the most part (besides the fact I am absolutely terrible at math) I used to agree with this statement. "I'm not like other girls" I thought.
Even though I cared more about college football as a young girl and I liked to run around outside my little brothers while attacking each other with light-sabers, I wasn't special and I wasn't not like the other girls. Just like I'm not "special" now, but I sure thought I was.
I had created this mentality while I was growing up and it wasn't until about a year ago when I came to this specific realization. I wasn’t special for my beliefs or all of my guy friends and lack of girl friends, nor was I special for trying to just stay out of drama. I wasn’t cool because I choose green and blue to be my favorite colors over pink and white, but this thought that I was, stuck with me for a long a** time.
Today, I think there are still women who have this “I’m special” mentality. And don’t get me wrong, we are all amazing, and talented and you should never, EVER dim your self-worth, but it feels as if women are more intrigued by competing against each other, instead of working with each other. We want to build ourselves up by pushing others down even in small ways.
“Her forehead is too big.” “She is sooo dumb.” “She only cares about her looks because that’s all she has.” “She is such a nerd.” “She’s way too spoiled.” “She’s just a slut.”
All lines that I have heard, or worse, have said--and I’m definitely not proud of it. It’s way too easy sometimes to be talking to your friends and scroll through Instagram and judge someone for how things that may not even be able to change. When I do find myself saying these type of hurtful statements, I stop and think about something that deserves a compliment even if the person may never know. Changing your mindset about people and how you look at them is SUPER hard, but it can be done, once you recognize it’s a problem.
We create competition and judgements out of thin air when it’s not even necessary! We’re mean to others (men and women) when in reality we’re all suffering in our own ways.
But why?
What’s the point?
I’m not special for believing in my values just like you’re not special for believing in yours. It’s God’s job to judge, not us. I will ALWAYS respect your opinion and your view point and all I ask is that you do the same.
Creating leadership in young girls is so, so important especially with the rapid growth in technology and love for social media. When need to teach everyone (boys and girls) that life is not based on what you see on a TV, laptop, or phone screen. People aren’t always happy, and we don’t all live glamorous lives in luxury.
Instilling this within the younger generations is crucial for the idea of girls “competing” to try and “out cool” each other to end. Helping to encourage young men is also important because they are our peers as well. We each rely on so many other people for our success.
I encourage you to partake in a random act of kindness. Or give someone a compliment. Apologize sincerely. Let go of the past grudges and move on into your future. Stop competing and start focusing.
You got this.
I’m here to help.
To read more about this topic, check out Kate's article https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-young-female-leaders-must-reject-thinking-im-like-kate-jung?trk=v-feed&trk=v-feed&lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_feed%3BT%2B%2FQSZgXDfh1vHpjXQuJ9A%3D%3D
