Are you like other girls?

When Meredith Grey said, “Pick me, choose me, love me,” the internet went wild. They found the raw, emotive speech Grey presents in an attempt to win her McDreamy back vulnerable and for the most part, empowering. Yet, Ellen Pompeo, who plays Meredith Grey detests the scene. She says, “Why am I begging a man to love me? To me, that’s not empowering.”

She’s right. Begging a man to love you, to validate you, is not empowering. To hit home this revelation, the internet gave birth to the moniker — Pick-Me Girl in 2018. The Pick-Me girl often tells you that she doesn’t make friends with girls because they are ‘too much drama.’ She interrogates you for a solid 45 minutes if you tell her you love cricket. She asks you to name every friend, spouse and the name of his firstborn if you ever said you like Eminem.

These questions are an extension of the gatekeeping that men often indulge in to keep stereotypically male interests ‘sacred.’ The Pick-Me behaviour helps the woman be at the centre of the male gaze, for their love and validation. The Pick-Me girl is a self fulfilling prophecy, especially if the prophecy says, “Women can never be friends.” To be one of the boys, she must throw every other girl under the bus.

You may be hearing the moniker for the first time, but in your life, — you have met, been bullied by, or been the Pick-Me Girl. With countless POVs (Point Of Views) and reels that hit too close to home, this personality’s ubiquity and roots in patriarchy became glaringly evident. Her sole purpose is to embarrass you, especially in front of men.

“I used to be heavy in school. There was one girl who’d often hang out with the boys and pass comments on my weight. I know she did so because she’d come to me and tell me about all the hurtful things the boys have said about me, often at her instigation. These comments included how my face and body apparently didn’t match,” says Ritika Mehra.

With comments like these, the woman shows solidarity with men. So when he says that women are too sensitive or that they can’t take a joke, the woman will laugh and agree. In some instances like these, it’s a mutually beneficial relationship. The Pick -Me Girl validates his biased opinion, he validates her existence.

The Pick-Me girl, at the core of it, is antifeminist. She tears down other women, in an attempt to climb up a non-existing ladder to male attention. To gain this attention, she needs to prove that she is not like other girls. Other girls are not worth a man’s attention.

“In 8th grade, this one boy told me that I wasn’t like other girls. I was so much smarter than other girls. I believed it was the highest of compliments. After many years of soul searching, I realise how dumb and backhanded that ‘compliment’ was,” says Rashmi Pillai.

As embarrassing as it is now, I used this differentiating phrase myself. For the longest time and in the loudest voice, I’d declare, “I am not like other girls.”

I found myself asking why I did not want to be like other girls, quite a bit. It’s a line women take as a compliment when men give it to us, and a definition women use to define themselves and stand out.

The answer lies in the narrative of women fed to the world by (you guessed it) men. Other girls are two dimensional, dumb, and incapable of caring about things other than weight, beauty and/or makeup. This narrative is false. Yet, for the longest time I believed it.

Growing up, when your identity forms, you become more aware of the way you are perceived. If the default perception is seeing your gender through a shallow lens, an adolescent individual will do whatever possible to change that lens. As such, women find it increasingly necessary to hate makeup, or anything remotely feminine.

However, with social media’s help, the Pick-Me Girl traits and its toxicity has been stripped to its bare core — a patriarchal, toxic, and negative core. The recognition of these traits has seen an inspiring number of young women choose not to be a part of this culture. Instead, they practice an upliftment, and an encouragement of all things girly and feminine.

As is the nature of social media to ruin all things great soon after its inception, the recognition of the Pick-Me Girl has caused an other-ing in the anti-Pick-Me spaces as well. There seems to be an inability to differentiate between women who are making the individual choice to not wear makeup or indulge in sports and women who are doing so to gain male validation.

As a woman, when I say that I don’t like wearing makeup, I must immediately justify my choices before I’m called out for indulging in male-appeasing behavior. Even on this end of the spectrum, the culture remains antifeminist at its roots, with an intention of tearing down other women. I must still declare that I am not like other girls. The only difference in my declaration is its audience — women.

The Pick-Me Girl era won’t end with a simple change in the audience, it needs a change in dialogue.

I am like other girls.