By: Chelsea Parcia
Published: February 15, 2022
These stereotypes of female characters and the division of how to be an empowering woman are only hurting both sides as one believes femininity is power and the other as denying them is power.
Usually being feminine is appearing delicate, modest or girly, but in most films that also means being two-faced, malicious or a diva. The mean girl trope is often seen as being overly feminine and has a high social standing being such a popular trope. It has also made its way to children’s shows, causing children growing up having a bad opinion on girly girls.
This toxic trope was also represented by Cady Heron as she became more feminine wearing skirts and pink the more “evil” she became. Wearing lip gloss does not equal bad.
The “Not like other girls” trope has been popularized in the 90s and early 2000s as women having more stereotypically masculine traits and are unable to appear feminine. This came from the bad side effects of feminism where women denied feminine things like heels and make up. It’s a toxic mentality to have and growing up on this trope causes many young girls to reject their femininity. Bella from The Vampire Diaries is a great example of this trope; she is considered unique and wanted even though she has no particularly unique trait. Also this creates a way to group girls that are seen liking stereotypical male activities such as sports and is tagged as a “tomboy”, but when men like it it is the norm.
QUICK HIGHLIGHTS:
Concept of pick-me-girls
Interpretation of power in femininity
Stereotypical materialism & roles
How filmic characters manifest feminism
Rejection of femininity is this idea that we need to stop doing overly feminine things so as to not be perceived as weak or shallow. We see these negative traits with the plastics in Mean Girls. Regina is judgmental, Gretchen is a boy-crazy gossip, and Karen is dumb. Janis Ian most likely also went through this phenomenon after her fall out with Regina, with Regina further proving evidence saying that Janis changed when she came back for high school likely referring to her new style. Although maybe her current style is her real self as we get a glimpse of her true artistic interest that is shown in her wardrobe, it was perhaps not in the beginning. In today’s society more people start to be comfortable with showing their femininity, but there are also girls who deny their femininity and even go as far as to degrade other ladies on theirs; commonly to gain male validation or to be “one of the guys”. These girls are presently labelled as “Pick-Me Girls”.
These stereotypes of female characters and the division of how to be an empowering woman are only hurting both sides as one believes femininity is power and the other as denying them is power. Which completely destroys the meaning of feminism where all of us should be focusing on achieving equal rights instead of focusing on how to show it.
We need more female characters like Elle Woods from Legally Blond or Beth Harmon from Queen’s Gambit because it empowers young women without distorting the concept of femininity. At the end of the day, even if you are either more feminine or masculine, it should not really matter as we all have both. All we ever really wanted was to be accepted. It does not justify people with bad behavior, but try to understand where they came from first rather than judging.