I spend a good five hours a day on the internet. This time is spent surfing through blogs, watching Netflix, and actively avoiding the YouTube comments section. No mater where I go, there is a pretty common theme to a lot of internet culture that is bleeding into our every day. Or is it the other way around…
Mocking things that girls like is something that TV shows, bloggers and especially unmoderated comments sections have down to a science. Twitter especially loves to rip apart the leggings and Ugg boots combination as well as pointing out that girls in high school have a tendency to dress similarly. The habit of ripping girls’ appearance to shreds isn’t isolated to high schoolers, but they certainly seem to bear the brunt of it.
Not only are these girls at their most impressionable, but they’ve done nothing that merits social shaming. Have you ever worn Ugg boots? Sure they’re ugly, but those suckers are cozy and warm. And leggings are a gift. If you’ve not treated yourself to some Lululemon gear you are missing out.
These things are perfectly acceptable, but the fact that teenaged girls like them suddenly makes them damnable. Boys, on the other hand, are just as uniformed as girls. Perhaps more so. Yet mocking khakis and Adidas slip-on sandals isn’t breaking headlines. Boys are allowed to obnoxiously effuse about things they enjoy without criticism, but the second girls are excited it’s Pumpkin Spice latte season there is a line out the door waiting to drag them for it. Boys aren’t calling into the principal’s office because you can see their shoulders. They are constantly surrounded by messages that they are more important, their interests more valued.
Sending a girl home for exposed shoulders because it distracts the male classmates says that her education is less important than a teenage boy’s utter lack of self control. Also, as the older sister to a teenage boy, I don’t think they’re so stupid and mindless that a shoulder is the reason they can’t pay attention to the history lecture.
The devaluing of girl’s interests and sense of self is a multi-layered problem. Not only are girls told that their gender-typical interests are invalid, but then they face opposition when branching outside of that. Girls who like video games are harassed online by male players. This isn’t the kind of banter that one might expect from teenagers. Females who are participating in stereotypically masculine activities receive rape threats, death threats, and verbal abuse that you don’t want to read nor do I want to type.
This is a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. The Breakfast Club had it right in 1985. “It’s a double edged sword,” as Allison Reynolds so aptly phrased it, “If you say you haven't, you're a prude. If you say you have you're a slut. It's a trap. You want to but you can't, and when you do you wish you didn't, right?” Though she was talking about sex in high school, the idea still applies. Women are stuck being shamed for liking historically feminine things and then receiving death threats for liking historically masculine things.
In a culture built upon a framework of valuing men over women, it is important to look at girls and tell them that their interests are valid. That their love of male-dominated STEM fields is valid and their passion for stereotypical feminine things doesn’t make them less of a person. It is possible to have your Pumpkin Spice latte and enjoy it, too.
