sorry to rant w/o a cut bc im on mobile but
can we just. stop. making el so incredibly feminine.
bc like. i get it! she was feminine in the show! she wore a dress and a long haired wig! but have you ever considered… why?
she did it because that’s what the boys had her do. she didnt do it because shes a girly girl or someone who likes feminine stuff. she did it so she could be smuggled around. so why do people act as if shes this girly little doll? shes not. eleven is messy and androgynous and powerful. she didnt care about being cute or girly. she cared about staying alive.
so why does everyone act as if the happiness she finds after the turmoil, when shes older, depends on traditional femininity? on having long hair and wearing cutesy outfits?
look. i get the want for feminine powerful girls. but when we act as if girls can only be powerful is they are also being aesthetically pleasing (which is the entire premise of 1. why they dressed el up and 2. what the fandom insists on doing), we are being misogynistic. we are teaching girls they can only be strong if we’re also small and cute and “”””appealing to boys”””. and thats not okay. at some point, we need to ask: why cant young girls be masculine?
this question is personal to me. i am a masculine young girl. i have broad shoulders and im tall and ive got a deep voice, and, most importantly, short hair. i am not feminine without effort. but im also strong. im powerful and smart and i know that i am and i use it, and guess what? people dont like it! they dont like the way i act, because the way i speak and look arent what they think of when they think of young girls! if i want a broad audience, i have to be so, so kind and polite and unnecessarily sweet where others, like young boys, dont. and that’s eleven’s problem, too. she had a buzzcut and her lab clothing suggested neither girl nor boy alignment. she wasnt feminine. she had no desire to be feminine because it didnt occur to her that it was important.
and them beauty standards were taught to her quicker than i think even regular girls are taught them. she learned all about presentability, in the way we do in years, in the course of one day. do you know how damaging that is? to have your psyche free of the social constructs of masculinity and femininity and then suddenly being forced into this box to be culturally acceptable? it’s literally every tomboy and gender non-conforming kids experience, especially trans kids (sorry i love trans girl el but ill make a post abt that another time). she had a striking start to what should be a story of her recovering from trauma and dealing with it through forced femininity, before realizing all of that is superficial and deciding to just be her androgynous, tom-boy self.
and instead, everyone just woobifies her and makes el seem like a princessy little care-bear loving babydoll who only cares about fashion and eggos and mike. completely vapid. so, so, so disrespectful to the story of masculine girls everywhere.
el’s representation as a young masculine-looking girl is such a good story for tom-boys everywhere (THIS ABSOLUTELY INCLUDES YOUNG TRANS GIRLS WHO ARE TOMBOYS). it shows them they’re allowed to be strong, allowed to be loud, allowed to take up space the way that THEY want. not the way others want them to. it shows them that a boy (or girl!) can like them even if they have short hair or a style of dress that’s not “girly”. it could potentially empower girls everywhere to be proud of their individual style and unique taste in gender expression.
but instead, we all just decide to treat her like she knows all about traditional, western gender roles and agrees whole-heartedly with them, and then stick max in as a tomboy for good measure, but leave the one we REALLY care about, REALLY know, as a palatable little dress-up doll, basically; and it grosses me out. that we cant let young girls be strong without simultaneously presenting femininely. it makes me so mad, because ive had girls tell me that i inspire them to be more androgynous and that i remind them of el… and to me, thats the most important thing ive ever heard. that i remind them of such a badass, intended-to-be masculine female character? yes! but them i remember what the connotations with el are online. helpless. in need of mike. weak despite being physically strong.
so we have to ask ourselves, in simple, un-politicized, fandom terms:
why cant girls look like they can kill you can actually be able to kill you, instead of looking like a cinnamon roll but actually being able to kill you?
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