Alright, real talk now.

Every girl has heard the phrase before. Some have spoken the forbidden words themselves, others have had it said to them. Regardless, it’s always bullshit.

I used to think that the whole, “I’m not like other girls,” mentality was just a female-specific branch of the ‘special snowflake’ syndrome that everybody (admit it, even you) used to have back in middle school. And in certain ways, I still think part of it is. “I’m not like other girls,” is something girls say in a desperate attempt to separate themselves from their gender…or at least what they think that guys think of their gender. In a lot of cases, I think they’ve even internalized this viewpoint as their own.

What is this viewpoint, exactly? It’s that girls are catty, dramatic, disloyal, vain: the image of the stereotypical "mean girl" that’s perpetuated itself through media for time untold. There are about a hundred issues that I could bring up with this. First of all, it’s just plain not true. Girls are people and the range of people that you can meet in just a single room is all over the place. There are obviously people you won’t get along with, that’s just life. But if everybody you meet, even just every girl you meet, doesn’t get along with you. Sorry to say, but that just means there’s a problem with you, not them. (You might be a jerk.)

This is the same sort of ridiculous statement as girls who say, “I just don’t get along with girls.” Really? Do you know all girls? Do you think no other girl in the entire world likes, thinks or does the things that you do? If so, then you might have to check your delusion meter. So what, you don’t like traditionally “girly things?” A lot of girls don’t. But even if you were the only tomboy in the world, that doesn’t mean jack shit. Guys get along with girls. If you don’t even have to be a girl to get along with girls, then how is it that you, a girl, can’t get along with girls? But that’s the thing. It isn’t about making sense. It’s about dissing girls (many of whom are way cooler than any of us, to be honest) and hypothetically stepping on them and raise yourself up.

By saying, “I’m not like other girls,” you’re essentially just putting down the entirety of your gender. Other girls are sluts. Other girls are b*tches. I’m neither of those things, therefore I’m superior to other girls. What is that but blatant (and frankly obnoxious) judgment? And of people you literally have no knowledge about, either. Girls are awesome and I don’t think there’s a lack of evidence of that in the world. We’re innovative, resilient and loving. Girls have made scientific breakthroughs. Girls have led armies. So the question is, “What’s wrong with being like other girls?”

So why am I talking about this? I recently did not finish "The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer." It’s almost irrelevant as to why, at this point. There were a lot of problems with this book; from the borderline-offensive token diverse character to the extremely punchable “love” interest. But I won’t go into those in this post. The important thing right now is that this was yet another YA novel where the “heroine” is set apart as totally unique from the rest of the female characters.

Mara is a special girl who gets bullied by the "mean girl," Anna. The protagonist and her friend mock her, call her a slut, all because of the romantic interest who is too aggravating to even mention. Mara, of course, who is pursuing the same guy and seems just as shallow (and infinitely more stupid) as Anna, is considered ‘different’ from her. In this case, she's supposedly ‘not like other girls.’ This is supposed to make the reader root for her because, like I mentioned earlier, a lot of younger girls tend to subscribe to that, “I’m not like other girls,” mentality and yay for relatability! Ugh.

But "Mare Dyer" isn’t the only YA novel that has this stupid trope. There are so many of them, "Twilight," "Fallen" and "The Selection"...the list goes on forever. I’m sick of seeing it. This isn’t about the protagonist being special or different from other people in some way. I understand that’s a way to make them interesting characters. It’s about painting the heroine inherently “better” than other female characters simply for not being a stereotype of “girls.” The heroine in these books are oftentimes stand-ins for the reader. So the message essentially becomes that you, the reader, are better than…girls. Because being a girl is such a terrible thing.

I get it. It’s easy to say that if girls have a bad reputation, then just shed the identity of a girl and say you’re not in that group entirely. But that’s neither the right way to fix the problem nor how real life works. If you’re a girl, then you’re like other girls. Just accept it. What we have to do is to trash that "Mean Girl" stereotype by having female characters not just fall back into it. Make female characters in books as diverse as girls are in real life. We already have plenty of people trying to bring girls down; we don’t need fellow girls doing it too.