The Conditions of Girlhood
i'm just a girl! a two-part essay that first analyzes the "Barbie" movie then rants
Part One: Barbie Analysis
Like most people who are susceptible to intense marketing strategies, I watched the Barbie movie at 10:10 PM on opening night.
I did not wear pink, however, I felt both extremely connected and disconnected from every woman in the theatre. Maybe the disconnection stemmed from the fact that the theatre was 75 percent, white women. Maybe it was because the movie with more questions than answers, nonetheless, I enjoyed the movie. No notes.
Sike.
We know I can’t just enjoy things. Nothing I’ve ever consumed has had no notes.
While I found Barbie entertaining and mildly insightful, I obviously have my critiques. Surprisingly, one of my critiques is not how this was a surface-level feminist movie because I did not expect it to be anything more than what it was.
And my critiques don’t revolve around the lack of intersectional feminism in the movie. Yes, it was a very girlboss, white feminist movie, but that is precisely the point, and Greta Gerwig either intentionally or unintentionally, spoke on intersectional feminism throughout the movie in the best way I expect a cis-gendered white woman to do it in.
Stereotypical Barbie is an allegory of what white feminism is: They dismiss the problems of one system, a system that doesn’t impact them, in hopes that they can still benefit from their incompetence and association with power and privilege.
Throughout the movie, Stereotypical Barbie consistently tries to go back to the status-quo. Before she leaves Barbieland, Barbie insists on forgetting her existential thoughts and moments of imperfection.
When she gets back and finds Kendom, Barbie doesn’t want to be the revolutionary who contests the new oppressive systems. Even though Barbie is one of the few Barbies that isn’t brainwashed by the patriarchy, she was about to choose inaction because she wasn’t being exploited as badly as the other Barbies. Yeah, her house and friends were under the control of her “boyfriend”, but at least she had her mind.
And these choices made in the movie mimic what we see in white feminist movements. White women who don’t base their feminism on dismantling all versions of oppression will ignore the oppression of women of color and LGBTQ+ women because it takes the least amount of work with the most reward for themselves.
Then, when they finally acknowledge that there is a problem, they offload the work to women of color to carry the load. In the Barbie movie specifically, we see America Ferrera’s character, Gloria, do this as she’s the one who sparks the change and does the work to reverse what the Kens did to the Barbies.
Nonetheless, I don’t think the lack of intersectionality is what led to my disconnect while watching the film. What really got under my skin was the underlying patronization that lurks throughout the film.
It would be wildly unrealistic and against their self-interest for Warner Brothers and Mattel to let an extensively radical feminist and anti-capitalist movie be made when both of those systems benefit the corporations directly. I’d be naïve to think a corporation would allow a movie about dolls to be outright radical.
But Mattel and Warner Brothers just rub it in our faces that we cannot do anything about the system. They poke fun at the fact that the boardroom consists of zero women and a few men of color, yet instead of changing it in real life or even the movie, they’ll just acknowledge and laugh at us for thinking they would do anything about closing the gap.
I despise when people talk to me as if I am clueless. The self-awareness of the movie is patronizing at times. I sat through the movie trying to figure out what was bothering me so much and I realized it was the fact that we will never truly be free from these systems when we let the abusers join in on the fun. The Barbie movie will never be a truly “feminist” movie if its fabric is sewn so tightly with capitalism, the over-arching system that holds us back.
But you could argue that the anger I feel at corporations laughing at us is the exact emotion that was meant to be present, showing us to root our anger at the true source that drives our oppression. Maybe that was the point, but I think that gives too much credit to how radical Barbie was trying to be.
Still, Barbie is a surprisingly nuanced film with connotations that can be argued endlessly. The exact critiques people have may end up being the exact social commentary that the movie was trying to make. It’s a movie that can’t be consumed in a vacuum, so don’t treat it as such. When a film screams the point at the top of its lungs, it shouldn’t be hard to listen.
Part 2: Just a Girl
Barbie was made to be the ideal woman. Eventually, it became inclusive of race, body type, disabilities, and career choices, but Barbie started out as a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, skinny white woman who did not work. Those were the ideas of perfection, thus what girls aspired to be.
And this idea of perfection exists because of patriarchy. As a girl, you’re taught that you must be the perfect woman for men to like you. There can’t be a flaw on the outside or the inside because you must be perfect at something to get a mere glare, while men just have to be there to get the glory to bask in
Stereotypical Barbie points out in the movie, all the Barbies are perfect at something. Whether it’s beauty or intelligence, Barbie builds its profit off promising girls that they can achieve perfection just like the dolls that they play with. So subconsciously, this idea is manifesting in girls that their worth as people is tied to how perfect they can be.
And we all have to be perfect in a different way that’s more perfect than the last girl. For me, my idea of perfect was to be everything everyone desires. Smart, funny, active in the community, have the best friends you could ask for, and somewhat attractive.
On paper, I had it all: Graduated 7th in my class with an Associate’s Degree as well, 4-year Varsity Basketball Captain, every extra-curricular you could imagine, committed to a top university, the whole nine yards.
On the day of my high school graduation, before I gave a speech to an arena full of my peers and their families because I thought it would be the last check on the box to a perfect high school career, I still felt a little empty. I still had this voice in the back of my head telling me that it wasn’t good enough. There was still someone out there that was better and more perfect.
Because the truth is, nothing we do is ever enough to quench our thirst for perfection. There will always be another impossible standard for us to reach.
But quickly, that small feeling of failure was washed away because my mom said something to me that I don’t think I could ever forget right before I hopped in my car to head to graduation. She said, with tears in her voice and pride in her eyes,
“This moment is worth every sacrifice I’ve ever made.”
I wanted to cry then, and I want to bawl now just thinking about it. So simple, yet it carries the weight of over 18 years’ worth of sacrifices. Sacrifices I wish she didn’t have to make for my sake. So, regardless of my nervousness or feelings of inadequacy, I got on stage to give a speech that I almost threw up over because I owed it to my mom and her sacrifices to at least exude confidence.
I think a lot of girls, especially those who are 1st generation or 2nd generation Americans like me, feel a little guilty for the sacrifices our parents make for us.
Western culture is highly individualistic and family values aren’t as important as they are in many other cultures. At home, with parents who grew up with less, but were able to give so much more, it feels like we owe them something. Because many Caribbean, African, Latin, and Asian cultures value family and community more, we must give back and seize the opportunities that arise.
There’s this desire to fully assimilate into American culture and be what you want for yourself. But there’s also this pull to be what you need to be to repay those sacrifices your mom made. My dreams are my own, yet they’ve hindered my mother’s potential. How can I fail if I carry both of our legacies in my hand? How do I prove to her that it was worth it, that I was worth it?
We must be the prettiest, smartest, funniest, perfect person because if not, we failed. If our mothers sacrificed so much for us to just exist with opportunity, we let them down if we fall short.
And that pressure is debilitating. You second guess all your moves because you’re trying to think ahead, trying to hurt feelings the least amount you can but newsflash: you can’t play chess with life. There’s no amount of thinking ahead that will get you a result that’s free of guilt.
It’s not that moms will always purposely put these expectations on us, but sometimes they are trying so hard to make sure we avoid the “canon” events that seem to always haunt the aspirations of women. They’ve seen their daughters dream for so long that they do everything that they can to make sure one of their mistakes doesn’t happen to their daughters.
In the Barbie movie, the character Ruth Handler says something that reminds me of what my mom said to me, “We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back to see how far they have come.”
At a certain point, some mothers realize that it’s too late for them by society’s standards. It’s too late to go back to school or work. Too late to find love after wasting so many years with the wrong person, so instead, they ache for their daughters to be different. They sacrifice their dreams in hopes their daughter will achieve theirs.
But even if their guidance is well-intentioned, there’s a point in every girl's life where she resents her mother to a certain extent. She thinks that her mom could’ve made a different choice. Married a different man or left him sooner. She thinks her mom should’ve pursued her passions and desires instead of settling down so soon and “choosing” to stay at home. She thinks she would make a better decision if she was in her mom’s position.
But then, the girl grows up. And she realizes that she would’ve done the exact same things her mother did because, at the end of the day, we are both just girls.
We are just girls in the sense that we do not have the autonomy to truly choose. In a world that makes decisions for us, telling us our worth is inseparable from the babies we create and the men we give value to, we do not have free will. Every action we take is a reaction to circumstances that are inescapable. Circumstances that seem to be repeated with every generation.
I’m just a girl. That’s all I am. That’s all the world sees me as, and sometimes, it doesn’t even see me as that. I’m just a girl. I crave love and connection and ache to give it back tenfold to whoever is willing to receive it, so much so that I’ll give it to the wrong person. I’m just a girl who has made the exact mistakes my mother has. A girl who has dreamed and aspired her whole life to be different because of a system that told me that it’s a competition to stand out.
The system that only sees me as just a girl:
Helpless and emotional. A commodity to be used and paraded for 15 good years then tossed aside. A maid and birther who protects a man’s legacy while leaving her own behind.
I am nothing more than a Barbie doll. Plastic, morphable. Plastered with a bright smile feigning perfection while crippling on the inside. A doll that lives in a fantasy land. Merely a hypothetical scenario where I can be free to choose before I’m exposed to a taunting reality that silences me mercilessly.
And that’s the irony underneath the layers of irony in the Barbie movie. No matter what we think we’ve changed, we’re still trapped in an endless cycle. We laugh with the corporations that participated in our demise. We are the rats that are trying to claw out of a glass cage while the scientists laugh at their futile attempts, calling them adorable for being dumb right before they pump them with poison.
But it’s something we have no control over. We just die slowly, unsure of what’s killing us because we were born into this world as if it were a truth: Something that is unchangeable and stubborn.
So, right now, the conditions of girlhood are as follows:
· Feel an insurmountable amount of grief and guilt for the girls whose potential was not reached for reasons outside of their control.
· Ache from carrying the impossible perception of perfection you feel you must carry to honor the opportunity you’ve been given for being born in the right place at the right time.
· Accept that you will have to accept a certain level of unhappiness in one area of your life whether it be family, relationships, or career. You will be disappointed more times than not.
But, with those conditions, you gain the ability to create true, unfiltered, and raw connections that make life worth it. You love and care for others in a deep and intimate way that is only possible when you can truly empathize and conceptualize the rhyme and reason for actions.
And that’s something so beautiful about girlhood. Despite it all, we remain connected. We choose to love and trust. We choose to endure in hopes it will make a difference. The change might not come tomorrow, but it will come because the world does not have to be a corporate lie disguised as a worldly truth. Instead, it could be a truth so pure that it’s worth dying for.
Women are whoever identifies as a woman. Girlhood can be experienced by anyone who has faced scrutiny for their identification as a girl. Don’t be a TERF. The Trans experience is welcomed in my version of girlhood.
1. crying on the plane all u hear is my sniffles rn
2. i’m so glad we’re friends. you have changed my perception of things, helped me feel validated in my feelings, vocalized similar ideas and feelings. this one is truly truly one of your best pieces. i love it. i love being a girl. #girl