so this is about the “thoughts on-“ thing, but i couldn’t think of anything very specific, so if you wanna rant about something or give a hot take, pls do! i’d love to hear it
Ooo wasn’t expecting someone to send me anything about that, thank you! Also your blog is lovely! Something that crossed my mind these days is how often the point is made that the “not like the other girls” thing is internalized misogyny (and it very much is!) but especially when that point was being made a lot on the internet, I never saw anything about how it often (I think?) stems from girls being singled out, made to feel like they don’t count as a “real” girl for many, many reasons. Not that no one has never said it, I didn’t come up with it, I just didn’t see it as often until very recently, and I think I only started seeing it now because I’ve been following more blogs ran by autistic people, mostly autistic afab people, who tend to go through that a lot. So... I think a lot of times the “not like the other girls” thing is dismissed as looking for men’s approval, and not (at least sometimes) as a response to... being treated like shit by female peers, you know? And you could make that argument for gender non-conforming girls, neurodivergent girls, queer girls, but also for much smaller shit. Like, I don’t know how much better things have gotten when it comes to that, but depending on when or where, you could very much have been made fun of for having a weird interest or dressing a certain way. And then you hear that so much that you internalize it, you think, wow, it must be really fucking weird to like this, because people make fun of me for it. And then you start saying shit like “haha i’m weird, I’m not like other girls, I like x” because you straight up hadn’t met other girls who like the shit you do and now you’re just “trying to seem special.” And like I feel like there could be a connection here to be made with how much pro-bullying shit I’ve been seeing in the past few years like “if you did x y and z you deserved to be bullied”, like people on the internet did a full 180 turn and decided bullying funny and good actually, because it teaches you not to be a fucking weirdo, but I’m not really sure how to elaborate on that. Again, to reiterate, taking pride in being “not like the other girls” IS internalized misogyny, seeing “other girls” as a hivemind IS misogyny and girls who think like that absolutely need to grow out of it, as I have had to also. But it’s kinda weird to dismiss it as just wanting approval from men. In fact growing up I had a real problem with boys bullying me as well and pointing out how weird and undesirable I was and how I basically didn’t count as a girl, and I think that still affects how I (try to) present myself to men. I have complicated feelings about my gender, and I would be straight up lying if I said I don’t at least question if the way girls treated me growing up plays a part in that. I do identify as non-binary but that doesn’t really invalidate my point. Also I am autistic which affected my relationships growing up in ways I’m only now starting to understand. uhhhhhhhhh don’t come for me, I’m solely speaking from personal experience including my experience of what I remember seeing and not seeing on social media over the years. I could be missing lots of things here. It’s 1AM also.
