Culture moves constantly like water. Like the river your parents told you to stay away from, in case the current set you too adrift. Yet some choose to dive into the changes, head first into a new perspective. As a tide goes out a new wave forms, a new wave of social feminism: reclaiming girlhood. Many regard girls as lurid pink waste water from the back of a primary factory: ignored or silenced, dirty or damaged, not needed. However, stemming from social media communication, these prejudiced presumptions are being washed away by the promotion of becoming a Girl's girl.

 

Some say that this began to take off culturally in the early 2000s with films that began to idolise the “bimbo” aesthetic, whilst contradicting very strongly the stupidity that was associated among it. For example, the film Legally Blonde creates the story of a blonde fashion major that chases a man all the way to Harvard. It all ends with a true loves kiss, right? Wrong. Instead she surpasses him and goes on to uphold a strong courtroom career as a woman. However, these types of film do not shake the stereotype off of their hands, but instead make a deliberate point of continuing to buy into the aesthetic and interests of the “bimbo”. Consequently, this franchise of films caused a wave of glamorously preppy women to find.

 

 But these were to combat. To combat the indifference many women were pushed into at the time: to not be like other girls. Many women felt they had to adapt their interests moulded to the desires of men, steering away from the feminine stereotype to be given lacklustre respect. Despite it mainly being a consequence of sexist social structures against women, this has lead to some girls becoming venomous and rude to other women to promote their own image.

 

Now in the 2020s, these demeaning behaviours continue as what has been labelled as a “pick me girl”. Yet, this term has instead evolved into yellow police tape; a mockery of attention-hungry behaviour that sacrifices others. Alongside the condemning of this behavioural trend, there has been an uprise of “girls’ girls”. Girl’s Girls are the foils of pick me’s, they protect women from the point of view of being women themselves; they embrace themselves stereotypically or not, they uphold the choices of other women and disregard the criticisms of men that are rooted in sexist ideals. Earlier last year, the Barbie film was premiered for the first time and once again rose a tsunami of pink. This film directly illustrates how being a woman is sometimes considered the most humiliating blunder someone can make. Considering this, it promoted a collective relationship of care and understanding between women to cultivate their careers and ideas in an oppressive society.

 

All these things in the modern day may be the beginning of a new wave of cultural or social feminism, or perhaps is simply a new branch off a wider running river that had been engraved before.