Girls

We were the girls with muddy skirts and scrapped knees who would aim to win every game they played. We were the girls who would not shy away to be rude to adults who weren’t nice to people we loved. We played with barbies, and we played with dolls because that’s what they bought for us, we made our barbies rush to their birthday bash, and we also made our cars transform with jet fuel for our spy Barbie, made them do everything we wanted to do. They could confront their bully, and they could fight off the bad guys, they never lost.

“They are aiming for the majority audience”, we were told, “and what’s wrong with having a male lead?”

Nothing’s wrong with having a male lead, but what’s wrong is that somehow every great spy, every successful CEO, and every courageous superhero leader is male. Who am I supposed to look up to for motivation? Am I not capable of leading? Do I not get to have a good role model? Am I not supposed to aim high? Because the movies sure say so.

We were the adolescent girls who were taught about the bad gaze even before they could be taught algebra, we were told to suffer silently because women inherently are better at handling pain. We were told to never show our anger because girls never get angry, they are supposed to be soft and polite and docile and mannered. We were never excused if we screamed loud, we were taught to be the kind one, the one who let their male siblings’ mistakes slide, the one who was asked to eat in moderation, not for obesity is dangerous but because who will marry you if you are fat and the only one who was pushed to learn household chores and cooking not to make us independent but because who else will do them when we get married. We were told girls don’t play violent games, we were asked to dress feminine but even then we were asked to make sure our skirts cover our knees, and the neckline to not fall low.

We were high school girls who were worried and insecure because no boy had ever told us we are pretty. We were angry and afraid to walk alone because men would slow down beside us to spew comments on our bodies. We were told to dress up but were sent home because our shorts were too short. We were told to be pretty and happy, but the scale on our weigh machine should remain small. We were terrified of dying alone because, at 18, we hadn’t had our first kiss.

We lied about self-love and cried at night about our fat thighs.

“Are you a feminist?”, we were accused, “stop watching such shows, feminism is crap, you’ll never get a boyfriend if you are a feminist.” Be feminine, but don’t be a feminist.

And so we grew into tired adults. We have our lights dimmed to fit in, and our passion was squeezed out of us in our teens. We are talked over and nothing we ever say is heard the first time. We never raise our voices, and we are rebuked if we do. We have grown so used to feeling afraid, but still, we wonder why we have to live in such fear. We are never credited but are expected to work hard and do most of the work. Where they are promoted for having a family, we are told to go back home. We are sick of being the mature one in every argument, it’s getting tiring to explain and explain and explain all the time until our tongues fall limp. We are exhausted from seeing people form a judgment about us without knowing who we are, and then see them act on them.

"When are you planning to get married?”, they ask us in interviews. They are already thinking of replacing us, making a list of why we shouldn’t be selected. Well, at least we knew why the panel had no women.

Rejection became so common, we didn’t think twice before denying ourselves something we wanted in the name of something else. We ate less, slowly decreased our appetite, had fun with friends but never went out to eat with them anymore. We used things to fill the hole in our gaping hearts. Put make-up on our acne that we knew isn’t right. Wore clothes that’ll hide our love handles. Heels our feet would bleed in. Bags that’ll carry our baggage. Coffee that might make us feel something.

We made all of it up. We impulse-bought the stuff on sale. We posted pictures of the 1% of our lives we were happily smiling. We hid our messy hair and our silly faces. We covered our back fat or just any part we thought was ugly with oversized clothes. We made videos when we felt pretty and cried about how ugly we are the next hour. We sketched and dreamed of fashion - all with pockets deep enough to bury our hands in.

And we made sure to not post on our socials too often and too much, for girls are bound to be judged if they love themselves or if they don’t.

Can you see the hypocrisy? Can you see how the world is forcing us to be pretty on the outside but suffocate and die on the inside? Can you see the selfishness? Can you see our cracks? Can you hear our desperate wails to breathe as you drown us? Or have the world turned you ignorant?

We weren’t made for this world. Where images of us have to be photoshopped because the reality is too ugly. Modeling half-naked is a career and the moment we post on our socials willingly, we are hoes. Where filtered pictures are pretty, and we’re patronized if our candid isn't aesthetic. We weren’t meant for this world. where we are allowed to have sex but we are told to not like it too much.

We created entire stories about how the main characters in our favorite universes were secretly girls in disguise. We made characters who were 17-year-old girls, who would slice throats and break the necks of anyone who hurt them. We sketched pictures of women in full metal armor and full-length pants because who ever fought in their underwear. We wrote crappy poetry about people we loved, the ones we envied, and the ones we admired.

Because the world wasn’t kind, we made one up. We had our Barbie be the badass villain and the kind hero. We gave her a cape and made her everything we ever hoped to be. We wrote barely-understandable fan fiction about werewolves and vampires who were all terribly in love with us- we were the leads here. We were perfect in this world.

-s