Girly Girl

Dear Angeli, 

Oh, how you held too many childhood fears: scissors, stairs, snakes, planes, haunted spirits, and heights among other things. Anything you felt could kill you—you shied away from. Because if there’s one thing Mom’s Filipino soap operas taught you, it’s that a freak accident can happen anytime, anywhere. Too bad none of the other kids understood that… 

In first grade, there was a girl you got along with until, one day and for reasons unknown, she turned on you. “Scaredy cat!” she teased, swinging her legs from atop the tree, while you remained on the ground, too afraid to grab the branches. 

Oftentimes, you felt the braver, more daring kids were worlds apart from you. You couldn’t catch up to them. You were always looking up; they were always looking down. And perhaps because of your weird obsession with Barbie dolls, that same girl also kept calling you a “girly girl.” 

Girly girl. 

Something about that name stung deep. It’s one thing hearing it from a boy, another from a girl like yourself. It felt like betrayal. Betrayal because back then the world could simply be divided into boys versus girls, so you wonder, “Aren’t we both girls?” Betrayal because little did you know the world outside your bubble wishes to render you both mute and docile, so you later ask, “Why must we weaponize our girliness, driving its razor-sharp edge towards our breasts and at each other’s?” 

Girly girl. 

Because of that name, you began resenting your girlhood early on. Being a girl made you feel weak and uncool. It made you loathe your own name, “Princess,” so you hid away your dolls, wishing also to toss your Barbie-themed lunch box into the trash bin. It made you despise all things pink. 

By third grade, you wanted to be a tomboy. You desired to cut your hair, to tear away skin, flesh, and bone as if gender and sex were as tangible as outdated fashion. You wanted to prove you weren’t like “other girls,” that you weren’t afraid of a broken arm anymore, that you could talk and think and play like a boy, listening only to your brothers’ rock music. You fought and hurt Mom because she had prayed you’d been born a girl, and if she hadn’t, none of this would’ve happened. You hated holding her hand and hugging her too because that made you feel weak, too much like a girl, and you didn’t want to be a girl anymore!

Now that I’m older, a young woman so to speak, it’s unfortunate to realize how internalized sexism can run so deep at so early an age, leading to resenting ourselves and each other. If I could go back in time to first grade, I would climb the tree, rough up my hands and nails, risk falling… All to look at that girl eye-to-eye and say, “So what if I’m a girly girl?” 

Because it just so happens the adult world too is so inherently against us girls with its drawn-out history of rape, infanticide, suppression, and objectification. The least we could do is embrace our girlhood and femininity. 

And I write this now for your current and future self: So what if you’re not a pretty enough girl for boys and men to rate you a 10/10? Why should it matter if you don’t wax your arms and legs or fix your brows? If your waist happens to be pudgy, your nose a tad bit too big for beauty standards? If all you wear are sweatpants and a hoodie? Some days, you love wearing pink blouses, other days flowery dresses. And although you’re utterly crap at makeup and still learning, you love applying your glossy lipstick. 

None of these make you any less or any more feminine. Neither are you weak. You simply are. 

Sincerely, 

Princess Angeli