The most bitter part of womanhood is the ugly feeling of knowing that we still live in a man’s world. Within their norm, their ideas, their way of thinking, no matter how misguided they may be. Toxic masculinity is pervasive, affecting the highest of presidential policies like birth control, that threatens to take away women’s basic right to govern their own body. But more often than not, we come across a more sublime breed of masculinity, underlining the smallest of social interactions. The stigma behind “Teenage Girl” is one of them.
It’s a prevalent insult. It shouldn’t be, but it is. “Oh, you’re just a teenage girl.” Just that phrase alone can win you entire arguments. For the longest time, they have represented the lowest rung of taste-makers. Anything associated with them is automatically and irremediably of poor quality, be it music, movies or books. Its a label you do everything to avoid. You may be a teenage girl, you don’t want to be a teenage girl.
It’s a lesson that I had to learn early. I was thirteen, and at the height of my One Direction fandom. The music. the videos, the endless edits on tumblr, the fanfiction, and most importantly, the community. It was a world unto itself, a safe haven where the uncertainty and loneliness of growing up didn’t seem so daunting, where the songs existed more like infinitesimal bonds, creating friendships that wouldn’t have existed without. One direction was a large part of my life, the only constant to those awkward years when everything kept changing. But as important as it was to me, One Direction remained a dirty secret. I never told anyone about it. I was afraid, as we all are, of being called a teenage girl.
Never mind that One Direction’s music was no different from anything on top 40 radio, at one point, admitting you listened to them was guaranteed social suicide. Bands and artists like them are never considered legitimate in the minds of a general listener. Their music is immediately absolved of any merit, even without a single listen, just because it happens to be enjoyed by young girls. And just like all sexist viewpoints, this is extremely toxic.
The inherent sexism that underlines the stigma behind teenage girls is pervasive. It’s not just a boy telling his friend to “stop being a girl.” Young women do their best to shrug off that title, in a desperate attempt to be viewed as complex, as equal in their thought as men. Because to society, teenage girls aren’t complex. We’ve been classed into this one collective being, a rabid ball of hormonal energy. To them, our likes and passions are not a result of any genuine curiosity. Teenage girls don’t think with their minds, they think with their emotions. We’re apparently incapable of formulating our own objective thoughts, and our opinions are always held at a lower regard than a man’s.
This notion is prevalent. This notion is false. And this notion is highly frustrating. It’s 2017. Men’s thoughts and opinions have been put on a pedestal for long enough. It’s time to be conscious of the underlying sexism in our everyday conversations. It’s toxic. It tells young women that our gender is something to be ashamed of. It tells us that we are mere slaves to our sexual urges. That our thoughts, actions, opinions and viewpoints will never be as valid as our male counterparts’. This attitude clearly belongs to 1800s, and its laughable that it still needs to be contended now.
So the next time you want to degrade my opinion, come up with a solid argument. Please, for the love of god, don’t dismiss me as just a “teenage girl.” Because if you do, then you’ve already lost.
