Dear girls of the world today...: seanan

Dear girls of the world today...

Dear girls of the world today;

There is nothing wrong with you.

Everything I see, everything I read, everything I hear, is geared toward telling you that something is wrong with you. You're too fat. You're too thin. Your skin is terrible. You look too young. You look too old. You're too smart, you're too dumb, you talk too much, you don't talk enough, you're broken, you're flawed, you're bad. And all those things are lies. They are exaggerations. They are designed to pick on the things you feel insecure about, and convince you that you will never be happy unless you force yourself into their standards of perfection.

They will tell you that you are weak; that girls can't deal with spiders or do math or love snakes or run nations or be scientists. They will tell you that you must be indecisive, flighty, more interested in the interests that are chosen for you than the ones that you choose for yourself. They will tell you that you have to change yourself to suit them, and then they will keep moving the goalposts, so that you're never done changing, and you're never allowed to be you. And they are wrong. They are so, so wrong, and you are better than the lies they tell you.

If you are a girl, you are a girl. Period, finish, end statement. It doesn't matter what you look like or what you enjoy doing. It doesn't matter what your assigned birth sex is or was. It doesn't matter who or what or why you love. All that matters is that you love, and that you accept that you are you, and you are awesome.

It's okay if you love pink. Some girls genuinely do. I genuinely do. Once, we would all have been viewed as cross-dressing and weird for liking pink, which was a male color. Times change. If you want to own your own pinkness, do, and don't let anyone tell you that makes you less of a feminist.

It's okay if you hate pink. You're not denying your gender or letting down the side, or anything else like that. You're a person, and there are a lot of colors out there to fall in love with. I recommend orange, green, and anything that sears your retinas.

Frills and lace and high heels and makeup are all fine. So are denim and combat boots and tattoos. So is everything between those extremes.

Collect dolls or knives or books or interesting rocks. Watch horror movies or romances or cartoons. Run races; go to spas. Eat cake or lettuce. Buy yourself a toy light saber and make your own wooooom noises while you wave it around; build a cardboard castle and chuck plush mushrooms at your would-be rescuers. Live your life, the way you want to live it, and understand that no one can kick you out of "the girl club" for doing it wrong, because you're not.

You're doing it exactly right, and I love you for that.

Corn maze love,
Me.

vettecat

May 4 2012, 16:51:43 UTC 5 years ago

New comment

Beautifully said.

seanan_mcguire

May 4 2012, 17:26:48 UTC 5 years ago

Thank you.

docmom

May 4 2012, 16:57:23 UTC 5 years ago

I know you've given several folks permission to share and re-post, etc. What about in printed form? I have Girl Scouts. If you would be open to troops using or distributing this, how would you want it credited?

May 4 2012, 17:27:15 UTC 5 years ago

I am absolutely open to you sharing this with Scouts, and just my name is fine.

firebirdgrrl

May 4 2012, 16:57:26 UTC 5 years ago

So say we all!

May 4 2012, 17:27:23 UTC 5 years ago

Yes.

acelightning

May 4 2012, 16:59:45 UTC 5 years ago

I'm another one who refused to listen when they told me "Girls can't do that!" I stopped bothering to even try to keep up with those ever-changing standards of "femininity" before I even finished high school - I wasn't having any success pretending to be like that anyway. Fifty years later, I think I made the right choices :-)

This video, "Fuckin' Perfect", by Pink (!), jibes so well with your entry:

May 4 2012, 17:27:37 UTC 5 years ago

I love that video.

5 years ago

sirriamnis

May 4 2012, 16:59:49 UTC 5 years ago

You rock.

May 4 2012, 17:27:44 UTC 5 years ago

Deleted comment

May 4 2012, 17:27:58 UTC 5 years ago

Agreed.

thedragonweaver

elbiesee

May 4 2012, 17:13:18 UTC 5 years ago

I need to share this with my kid.

May 4 2012, 17:28:07 UTC 5 years ago

Go for it.

nyxalinth

May 4 2012, 17:21:45 UTC 5 years ago

THIS.

You are awesome and win.

May 4 2012, 17:28:15 UTC 5 years ago

You are, too.

salexa

May 4 2012, 17:24:11 UTC 5 years ago

Thank you.

I am reposting this on my journal as it looks like you are
Ok with reposting and this needs to be seen.

May 4 2012, 17:28:31 UTC 5 years ago

I am okay with that. Just link back.

laith.wordpress.com

May 4 2012, 17:25:08 UTC 5 years ago

Great post!

I'm going to show my wife and we will probably read it to our girls.

Thanks for the well written points on this, I feel strongly it is a message that needs repeating.

May 4 2012, 17:28:47 UTC 5 years ago

You are very welcome.

"Dear Girls of the World Today" by Seanan McGuire

livejournal

May 4 2012, 17:31:52 UTC 5 years ago

User

ebenbrooks referenced to your post from "Dear Girls of the World Today" by Seanan McGuire saying: [...] it exactly right, and I love you for that. Corn maze love, Me. The comments on the original post [...]

ginger_ann

May 4 2012, 17:52:05 UTC 5 years ago

I know you don't know me, but I think you are awesome. Mind if I repost this?

May 4 2012, 19:17:11 UTC 5 years ago

Not at all.

May 4 2012, 17:53:07 UTC 5 years ago

ginger_ann referenced to your post from Dear girls of the world today... saying: [...] Originally posted by at Dear girls of the world today... [...]

cmzero

May 4 2012, 17:55:17 UTC 5 years ago

Father-to-be here. I don't know the gender yet, but if she's a daughter, I have this bookmarked and ready to go.

May 4 2012, 19:19:27 UTC 5 years ago

Daughter or son, your preemptive compassion means that you will be an awesome father.

Jennifer Wiewel Westberg

May 4 2012, 18:02:49 UTC 5 years ago

Thank you for saying this. I have two wonderful children. From the time they were little, I have been telling them they are unique and that other people will call that uniqueness weird or not normal. But I have taught them, luckily, to embrace that uniqueness and to love it when people point out those things that make them who they are.
But reminders that others think and feel the same way I do reinforce the idea in ways greater than I can explain.

May 4 2012, 19:19:51 UTC 5 years ago

I get that. Hearing it from your mom is different. She has to care. But other people don't.

anne_d

May 4 2012, 18:02:53 UTC 5 years ago

You are absolutely, totally, and completely awesome, and with everything you write, I admire you more. I wish I'd had someone to pick me up by the scruff and tell me all of this back when I was young enough to use it.

My daughters are doing it right, and I admire and even envy them a bit for that.

May 4 2012, 19:21:05 UTC 5 years ago

I am very proud of you, for helping your daughters do it right.

lastalda

May 4 2012, 18:05:39 UTC 5 years ago

You are made of awesome! Thank you!!!

May 4 2012, 19:21:24 UTC 5 years ago

So are you.

talvinm

May 4 2012, 18:09:17 UTC 5 years ago

As the Father of the only 7-year-old Girl we know who has her own collection of Power Tools: thank you, thank you, thank you.

Now: can somebody please make my In-Laws STFU about what horrible parents we are for not dressing her in frilly skirts and dresses? :(