Stop being ‘Not like other girls’

There’s a popular idea on the internet to act like women are ‘not like other girls’ which involves women shaming other women for their interests.

This may make misogynistic women feel more powerful when they put down others but in reality all it does hurt other women. We see a lot of this hate online whether it be through the gaming community or on social media apps.

One study found that half of misogynistic comments on Twitter come from other women. While 52% of these tweets were coming from women and focused on things like promiscuity, appearance and animals according to a Mashable article.  Many of us see this kind of language every day scrolling through almost all of our social media.

Berit Brogaard, a professor of philosophy at the University of Miami, says there are four different types of misogynistic women; the Puritan, Self-Critic, Self-Loather and She-Devil.

The Puritan wants women to act like the 50’s perfect housewife. The Self-Critic favors that all women should embody all feminine traits, like being passive, soft-spoken, etc. Self-Loathers see all women as “promiscuous, maipulative, dishonest, irrational, incompetent or intelligent.” The final type, the She-Devil, believes she’s superior to other women and does everything she can to stay at the top.

All of these types have one thing in common- insulting women for not conforming to their ideal feminine woman.

Olivia de Recat does a great job satirically writing about the many “other girl” stereotypes in her article ‘I’m Not Like Other Girls.’  In her piece, she nails just about every single negative stereotype about women. Women who genuinely think they are unique by insulting the rest of gender by reducing them to airheads and ditzes that only care about materialistic things don’t realize how ridiculous they sound.

I think everyone is entitled to be passionate about their hobbies and what they find interesting. Just because someone enjoys makeup and dressing up doesn’t mean they can’t have an intelligent conversation and are shallow.

You can also enjoy watching football without shaming women who would rather shop instead of yelling at a TV screen. Why can’t we all have our interests without being shamed?

Growing up in a rural area influenced me to be a tom-boy and created this idea that if I like “girly” things I couldn’t be taken seriously. Now I realize that there are so many things that make women unique and special, and we are that way because of our interests and experiences.