Enjoy some thoughts from my morning cannabis & coffee sesh!
Is it just me or do young women seem so much less competitive and cruel than when I was in my teens and early twenties? Maybe I’m out of touch and completely off base, but young women seem so much less competitive and cruel than when I was in my teens and early twenties. They appear to stick together and look out for each other in a way that’s much more powerful and meaningful than the “Girl Power” of the 90s. It’s beautiful to see but leaves me wondering if I have always actually been the “girls’ girl” I am now.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say I probably wasn’t. I couldn’t possibly have been as supportive of other women as I’d like to believe I was, because looking back, it’s apparent that I simply didn’t have the information, context, or self-confidence. I can confidently say I was never a pick-me girl, but I’m sure there were times when my voice was more patriarchal in nature than it should have been. Privilege wasn’t something I considered much until my late twenties and I don’t feel good about that in hindsight. However, we don’t know what we don’t know, and when we know better we can do better. I was raised by hippies, so there was a certain amount of Second Wave Feminism that infiltrated my young life but it was also tarnished with domestic violence. What it meant to be a girl, and then a woman, was never discussed explicitly and all expectations had to be guessed or observed, in my family. Perhaps that’s why it’s exciting to see younger women embracing the idea of universal sisterhood, proudly proclaiming themselves a Girls Girl, and being inclusive of all women. There appears to be a large contingent of women under 30 right now who are coming into their own version of “Girl Power” and I’m hopeful that it just may be more inclusive and compassionate than ever.
A perfect example of this Girls Girl energy was captured in a TikTok I watched recently. The video involved two girls who had found another girl’s phone at a concert. Instead of handing it into the lost and found, they took personal responsibility for getting the phone back to her, and they used social media to track her down. Thousands of women shared the post and the phone made it back to its owner. Cynics will say that it’s performative and they did it for clout, but even if they did, the message behind their actions is still positive. Looking out for each other and creating community, however parasocial it is, still contributes to an overall sense of belonging and creates opportunities for more trust and more compassion. I’m also well aware as I’m writing this that I’m painting with broad strokes, and certainly some girls and young women are still problematic and deeply entrenched in the patriarchy they were raised under. There are girls who are bullies, there are women who are exclusionary and cruel to other women, women who see all other women as competition and threats, women who have never been supported by other women and simply don’t know how to do it. White feminism (the kind without intersectionality) is still making work for the overall cause. All these things are still true.
All these situations are still at hand, but still, when I see these moments of willingness to reach out or go above and beyond for other women I’m heartened. It’s just a TikTok, but it’s also a tiny ripple. I can’t speak to all demographics or specific groups of women, but overall it seems as if the unspoken solidarity of women is improving, and its young women driving it. I hope that just as the definitions of a woman have expanded, so will the love and community. With politics as dicey as they are and the rights of the marginalized hanging in the balance, we are absolutely due for more community and finding strength in numbers, each other’s stories, and each other’s voices. There’s no time to waste!
