The Fallacy of a "Not Like Other Girls" Mentality
What we’re really saying when we praise women for being “different.”
When I was in my late teens and early twenties, my favorite compliment from male suitors went something like this: “You’re different from anyone I’ve ever dated. I’ve never met a girl like you before.” That’s right, I would think, I am a uniquely special snowflake among women! Finally, someone has noticed.
After all the clique-y rejections from female friends and low-level bullying from same-sex classmates, I felt vindicated. There was a reason I could not maintain healthy relationships with my female peers. Being so different from these other girls made it impossible to relate to them. That must have been why they were so mean and catty all the time. Perhaps it really was better not to have women friends after all.
And so, I set to work building a cadre of male friends to fill the void. If women always made me feel left out or unworthy, then surely male companionship would be an adequate replacement. I liked being “one of the guys” if it meant consistent sexual attention. Were these friendships purely platonic or were they an excuse to feel pretty and walk the line between “will they” and “won’t they”? It didn’t matter much to me, as long as I didn’t have to feel alone.
Over time, however, I came to realize that men don’t necessarily make great long-term friends. At least not in the way I needed them to be. They often found girlfriends and dropped off the map. They sometimes got married, and I never heard from them again. The reasoning was hardly rocket science. It’s far easier to distance yourself from a female friend than worry about making your partner jealous. Besides, it’s not like the two of you were going to get along. You’re too different from her, remember?
Beyond the complexities of my male friends coupling up and moving on, I found that boys weren’t always the best listeners. They often have wildly different interests or unhelpful perspectives, especially when you just want to vent about an annoying life situation. In general, men tend to be fixers. They aren’t interested in hearing about your dumb coworker’s latest attempts to undermine you if you’re not going to actually do anything about it (and as your friend, they aren’t getting laid to listen to you talk about it).
These are somewhat snarky oversimplifications, of course, but in my experience, the fact remains: You can’t really replace female friendship with a male-female dynamic and expect to get the same results. You also can’t keep viewing yourself as somehow superior to other women and maintain fulfilling relationships with them. It’s a catch-22, really. What’s a girl to do?
Well, if you’re like most women, you can grow the fuck up. There’s something about hitting your early thirties that helps you to see things more clearly. You start questioning the narrative. What is that Tinder date insinuating when he tells you that you’re different from the other women he’s met? What’s so wrong with “most women” that you need to be unlike them? And at this point, aren’t you a little old to be thinking all women are competitive bitches or slutty attention whores?
Apparently not. The singer Pink recently came under fire for having a storied history of building her brand around an image of being “The President of the Not Like Other Girls Foundation” and belittling other women (mostly her industry peers) in the process. Being that Pink is a grown-ass woman in her 40s and this isn’t the early aughts—a time when this mentality was far more commonplace and socially accepted—people, unsurprisingly, had a lot of feelings.
I also have some thoughts. The first being that I don’t want my daughter to internalize what I now see as misogynistic, mean-girl messaging that promotes unhealthy competition and divisive chasms between women. In a society where this type of thinking is so pervasive, that’s easier said than done. We can start by exploring what we actually mean when men applaud a woman for being somehow distinct. We can analyze what we’re really saying when women praise themselves for being “not that kinda girl.”
To me, this designation as “not like” is what has helped to create a culture filled with “pick-me girls.” When I felt profoundly wounded by the girls in my social circle, I responded by seeking affection elsewhere. I was deep in my Pick-Me phase. It was easier to put down my peers and distance myself than face the feelings of rejection or do the inner work of delving into why I never really felt like I belonged.
Unfortunately, some men have learned how to play on those kinds of insecurities, although I don’t always think the statement is made with mal intent. After all, the compliment is kind of nebulous. It can be interpreted a number of ways, and when pressed, most men can’t fully articulate what they meant by it in the first place. Sometimes I think men believe that this is what you’re supposed to say to women you like to make them feel special and seen.
And it works. Some women do feel special and seen! For a long time, I was one of them, which means I also helped reward the behavior whenever a man said those magic words to me. That’s likely one of the reasons why it’s still so common for men to view the “you’re different” compliment as the highest form of praise. In that same vein, women who feel disconnected from their same-sex peers find this compliment meaningful because it confirms their deeply ingrained (and false) belief that most women are awful and not to be trusted.
This is going to be a hard habit to break. That’s especially true if we consider that the divide between women may go as far back as the mid-1400s when witch hunt hysteria triggered mass torture and executions across Europe. In her book, Witch, Lisa Lister writes, “The truth that women became stronger in belonging was broken. Persecutors encouraged sisters to turn on each other in order to save themselves, and entire matrilineal chains were torn apart.” History.com speculates that between 1500-1600, 80,000 suspected witches—mostly single women, widows and older ladies on the fringes of society—were murdered.
[Side note: In case you were wondering, Germany was the best at killing witches (weird, right?!). Ireland’s effort was lackluster at best.]
So, yeah, it’s kind of hard to trust other women when their false testimony might get you hanged. And although a lot of this violence happened long ago, the implication is that this terrifying time in history created a rift of mistrust that still reverberates through our female relationships today. A rift that is likely exacerbated and maintained by our patriarchal society in subtle and overt ways.
To counter centuries of conditioning, Lister advises women to stand firmly in their femininity and reclaim their power. In some ways, I agree with her approach. It’s much harder to fall into the pick-me girl consciousness when you live from a place of unshakeable confidence. This is the point when you become completely uninterested in your status as a uniquely special snowflake. You simply don’t need the validation. You’re happy with the authentic you that you really are.
This is what I want to teach my daughter. I want her to know that women aren’t all one thing. We aren’t inherently catty or competitive, bitchy or brainless, slutty or self-obsessed. We don’t have to be different, and we certainly don’t have to put on some sort of “cool-girl” performance to earn the respect of men or other women or anyone at all. We can all be that kind of girl—whoever she may be.
With pleasure,
Yes, Misstrix
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In other news, I’m excited to report that I was recently featured on The Treasures Within podcast. In the episode, Giorgia G. and I talk about creativity, harnessing sexual power and manifesting your dream opportunities. You can listen to that here.