A guy friend once told me that I’m “not like other girls.” He meant it as a compliment, but it left a lump in my throat that made it impossible for me to get my thanks out. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn’t want to thank him for this so-called compliment at all.
I knew what he meant: you’re not a “girly-girl.” You don’t obsess over nail polish and twirl your hair while smacking pink bubblegum and talking about the latest celebrity gossip. You’re not an airhead. Not like those other girls.
But when did all other girls become airheads? This compliment equates girlhood with vapidity, a mentality I wish we’d left behind in middle school. But it keeps following us, a grown-up (but not any more mature) version of “girls have cooties.”
I spent most of my middle school years buying into the “not like other girls” myth. I rejected pink and didn’t wear makeup and read a lot of books to prove I wasn’t a feminine ninny. I wanted to have mostly guy friends because being friends with girls was “too much drama.” I look back on this time and groan because it’s internalized misogyny at its finest. No girl should feel like she’s in the wrong for being feminine, but it’s a phenomenon that’s much too common.
The worst part about it is that, in an effort to become “one of the boys” so that I wasn’t like other girls, I missed out being friends with other girls for a long time. And, contrary to what this “compliment” would have you believe, other girls are awesome. My girlfriends are one of the greatest parts of my life, and they’re the most exceptional people I know.
Contrary to what this “compliment” would have you believe, other girls are awesome.
I did it because the compliment “not like other girls” forces women into a competition none of us agreed to, where the goal is to lessen our femininity. But girlhood isn’t something I want to break out of, it’s something I want to celebrate. Things we consider ditzy–lipstick, high heels, pretty dresses, too many pillows on the bed–are fun things girls should be able to enjoy without any negative connotations. And if I can love them all and graduate with a higher GPA than the guy who allegedly complimented me, it’s because enjoying girlhood doesn’t make me a ninny.
The truth is, I’m not like other girls. Neither is my sister, or my cousin, or my best friend, or my roommate, or the girl who sat next to me on the subway this morning. We’re all different from each other because—get this—we’re actual people with actual personalities. A subtlety the dude who insists I’m “not like other girls” just can’t grasp.
When I told my guy friend this, he rolled his eyes and told me I was overanalyzing. But language is where our thoughts start. It’s what we use to express ourselves. And what we’re expressing here is a deep-seated disgust for femininity that’s engrained in the words we use every day. It’s about time we changed that.
Read more: Does Our Language Discourage Women?
Have you ever been told you’re not like other girls?
“I’m not like other girls”…. The girls who totally are like other girls desperately trying to convince other people (usually men) they are not like other girls. Which ruins it for the women or girls who really aren’t like other girls.
Instead of saying we’re not like most girls, let’s clarify that we’re not like society’s preconceived notions of women. I’m not like a lot of girls. But I am like tons of other girls, too. There is no list of qualities that most women possess. For any quality one woman possesses, there is a woman that possesses the opposite quality.
I cringe a little harder every time I hear any variation of this statement. Even worse? Being told, “you’re not like most girls.” Sure, it’s meant to be a compliment, but what’s wrong with being like other women?
What an amazing article!!! Well spot on! It took me way too long to realize that every woman I’ll ever meet is an individual. Every woman I meet has something to teach me. The craziest thing to think about, looking back, is the fact that I was so deeply affected by the unappealing stereotypes I had internalized about women before I could really understand what they meant. If you had told me that I was “not like other girls” when I was 14, I would have taken it as an enormous compliment. If you said the same thing to me today, I’d probably tell you to really talk to some more women. lol
I 100% understand where this impulse comes from. I used to do this, too, in college. We’ve all gotten the message, loud and clear, that being a woman/girl is Bad. Girly hobbies are shallow, girly objects are inferior, girly literature and movies are fluff. Girls are crazy, emotional, desperate, bossy, hormonal, unreasonable, irrational, illogical. It’s a barrage of negativity we face from day one and I understand why girls who internalize that uncritically would take any escape they imagine they can find. I get it that they think “acting masculine” (as if anything is inherently masculine or feminine) will make guys respect them more, listen to them, take them more seriously. And it will. For a while.
But there’s a nasty secret about “not being like other girls.” The moment you disagree with men who fall for that crap? The moment you stop performing to their standards or playing their game? You’re just as “crazy” and “hormonal” and “shallow” as you’ve been told the rest of us are. Trust me. It doesn’t even need to be relevant to your friendship. I lost ALL my guy friends in college because we had a disagreement over whether an unrelated thing a college-aged man did. Not like our interests changed or I accused anybody. I just disagreed in what I thought was an obvious argument. But I got called an irrational b***ch.
I love this post. Sending this to my sister, she’s definitely a girl who considers herself “not like other girls.”
I clicked on this thinking it was going to be something else but instead I got something so much better. I am tired of women that put down other women for being “girly” so that they can make themselves stand out. 😉
You know.. I hear this from men all the time. “Whoa, you like xyz? Girls usually don’t!” …Really? Because I have tons of female friends who like comics/whiskey/gaming/sports/metal/whatever. This idea that “most women” are a specific way is so bizarre!
And what’s more is that I’m supposed to accept “You’re not like other girls” as some kind of compliment or benchmark. But really it’s just kind of obnoxious and offensive.
Yeah, what the heck is with that “compliment”. It just makes me realize that they have a very specific definition of what a woman should be. No thanks, I want a partner that can appreciate all sorts of women.
My coworker said something similar the first time I met him because he found out in the same shift that I liked classic sci-fi and whiskey. I told him that I was exactly like other girls, because other girls are also complicated and capable of liking both wine and single-malt and chick-lit and Dune and shopping and video games. Just like I like all of the above. Needless to say, we do not get along nearly as well as he initially thought we would.
I’m just gonna be frank here. I’ve heard “I’m not like other girls” from more women than I can possibly recall. If all of us, collectively, are not like other women, then who is even left?
I couldn’t have read this post at a better time. I’m so much in this boat and definitely the same. I don’t say that girls are too much of a drama or think I’m superior other people, but I do think I’m different than many other women. Not all of course, but many at least. I just haven’t found many women who seem similar to me and who I can relate to.