Mésencyclopédistes Encyclopédie de META 4

04 - Trèfle à quatre feuilles

L’intérêt de la chose unique qui n’est pas commune, qui n’est pas comme toutes les autres, nous amène de Trèfle à quatre feuilles à You’re not like other girls

Saying ‘you’re not like other girls’ is not a compliment

What’s wrong with ‘other girls’?

by Emma Healey

This article isn’t to say that all girls (and all people) aren’t unique – we are. But, when we claim we are “not like other girls” we position ourselves in opposition to and against other girls. It’s a compliment we accept, usually from guys, and an idea we perpetuate, and we need to stop it. I am definitely guilty of saying it when I was younger: “I just get on better with guys”, “I’m not really like other girls” were pretty much my mantras. I felt like I had to position myself against the girly stereotype to be seen as valuable and desirable, but in reality as I’ve got older I have realised that saying someone “isn’t like other girls” doesn’t elevate you, it just puts other girls down. Whether intended that way or not, when we differentiate ourselves from other girls, as though girls are a monolithic category, we make a value judgment. When we describe ourselves as being “not like other girls”, we make existing a form of competition. But as Sarah from Brighton says, “It’s a competition I didn’t sign up for.”

In our society, women’s success is dependent on distancing ourselves from the rest of our gender. Arguing we are not like something, rather than being able to take pride in all the ways we are feminine or girly. I don’t blame girls who describe themselves like this at all though – really it’s something that has been created to divide us and comes from living in a sexist society.