Hi everyone!
I hope your summer is going fantastic and is full of sunshine! But if you live in Texas you'll know that's impossible, for every other day is rainy and our weather is bipolar. Anyway, I'm so sorry I haven't blogged in ages. And I know it's been ages, because I keep thinking of good things to write about and then forget about it instantly. Being busy with friends, school and now that summer is happening, my new part time job has kind of consumed my life. So… Today I'm finally talking about something that I've coined "The Good Girl Complex."
I was hanging out with my friends I went to high school and middle school with just recently, and they were texting someone on their phone. They brought me up by saying "I'm hanging out with Logan tonight. Oh you remember Logan, she's the good girl we went to school with." ...Huh? That struck me as kind of odd, but I brushed it off. Some time later I was eating dinner with another set of friends, playing with that fun app Snapchat (we're all addicted to it, don't pretend like you don't do it too) and my friend got a reply to the picture of her and I that said "Your bff is almost as pretty as you, what's she like? ;)" She said, "Hey, don't think about her like that, she's a good girl." That word again. What does that mean? Now, maybe she knew what he meant behind that statement, and was stopping him from making crude jokes. But still, that label again made me think. These are only two recent encounters that I can remember verbatim, but i've been living with this "identifier" for so long I can't even remember when it started-- most likely in middle school, where everybody gets labeled. I've been called a good girl by my family, friends, boyfriends, and I've come to know it can be both a compliment and an insult, and most often it steps into the insult-zone.
Everyone is obsessed with labels. Especially in this day with movies like Mean Girls and 21 Jump Street where we see them making fun of cliques and labels. Geeks, jocks, cheerleaders, goths, hipsters, rednecks, richies, good girls, bad girls, sluts, fashionistas, rebels, druggies, etc. But this is reality... When did the world become segregated into good girls or bad girls? If you're not one, you're the other? If you don't sleep around and drink every weekend, you're a prudish, old-fashioned good girl? What did those "good girl" comments my friend said imply to that other person, that I'm no fun to be around or that I'm boring? Some people might call me crazy or hypersensitive, thinking being called a "good girl" is a bad thing. Not necessarily, it just depends on the context. You see, the definition of "good girl" has changed over the years. Now, it's a stigma, a cliche, a stereotype, or even going so far as to say a prejudice. It implies shyness, innocence, blindness, naivety, being a loser, old-fashioned, a prude, and even having a boring personality. Don't believe me? Take a look just a few pop culture references.
In magazines' fashion spreads, the "good girl look" is always modestly dressed with soft hues, soft hair, young looking models, making them look innocent, geeky, lame or boring. The cliche of pink, soft and innocent. Good girls never dress daring or fashion forward.
This makeup look is called "girl next door glam." Pretty, yes, and I love T-Swift as much as the next girl, but it's not the most fashion forward makeup I've ever seen. Good girls can't have a smokey eye or a bold red lip?
In songs these days, good girls are portrayed as innocent, naive and don't know how to have fun. Example one, Good Girls Go Bad by Cobra Starship.
"I know your type
Yeah daddy's lil' girl
Just take a bite
Let me shake up your world
Cause just one night couldn't be so wrong
I'm gonna make you lose control
She was so shy
'Til I drove her wild
I make them good girls go bad"
Or how about Good Girl by Carrie Underwood? (I love her by the way, she's fantastic)
"Hey, good girl
With your head in the clouds...
Why, why you gotta be so blind?
Won't you open up your eyes?"
So let me get this straight: good girls don't dress cool, don't have fun, don't dance or go to parties, don't date bad boys, socialize, make mistakes or have regrets?
And another: Good Girl by Lily Kershaw:
"I'm going down, down, down
I'll dig my own shallow grave
I'm going down, down, down
Good girls aren't supposed to misbehave
I'm not a good girl anyway"
Those two pictures are "Good Girl Gina" memes, used to perpetuate the idea that good girls say the right things and do the right things all the time. But nobody is perfect, no matter how good of a girl they are. I wore the title "good girl" like it was an outdated sweater in high school; I thought that made me boring. I thought it made me different, an outcast. I thought it meant people didn't think I was fun to be around. But that changed when I started really thinking about what it meant for my life…
You know what I call a good girl? A girl who treats people with respect and people respect her back. A girl who holds her head high and doesn't change for other people. A woman who can have fun without going crazy. A woman who dresses fashion forward but can also dress with class andmodestly. A good girl IS different but because she chooses to live her life respectably. But that doesn't mean she can't have fun! Good girls can party and laugh just like everyone else, we aren't prudes. She can do whatever she wants to do. No one is perfect. So… Should no one be called a "good girl" anymore? No, that's not what I'm saying. It's perfectly acceptable in conversations, if being used for good. Just don't use it as an insult. It can very easily become a backhanded compliment, because it (like many labels and names) can cut deeper than you think. Good girls are people too!
Feel free to comment if you've have an experience similar to mine! Oh and don't worry, more fashion advice to come soon.
As always, vivre la mode, tout le monde!
