Hot Mess: Love, Shame and Feminism

 The Girlhood Balancing Act

Written by Lynn Ha

For the past few years, in my early twenties, I have spent a lot of time thinking and talking about romantic love. As a girl myself, my girlfriends and I are constantly talking about love, love, love. From date debriefs to trauma sharing, both online and offline, the TEA is spilled regardless. Sometimes whispering, discreet or giggly over coffee or dinner; or dramatic, IN ALL CAPS, in the kitchen corner of a house party; or under dim light at three am at a girls’ night in, screaming, gasping, crying, hugging, then screaming again, a lot of ‘awww’s’, then some more crying.

So, it came to me as a big surprise when I gradually realised that there is a complex sense of shame that is associated with romantic love, and the space it takes within girlhood. Even deciding to run a column on love at The Courtauldian came with some doubts and a degree of anxiety over the potentially ‘shallow’ and frivolous subject matter: the ‘silly’, ‘trivial’, ‘unimportant’ and ‘obsessive’ love of girls. My anxiously self-inflated ego imagined readers who may recognise my name from my earlier column at The Courtauldian three years ago, where I was writing about a more ‘serious’ and solemn subject matter: the relationship between art and ethnic minorities. The change from one subject to the other almost felt regressive, as if the two could not coexist, despite the fact that both are matters that I am both intellectually and emotionally interested in.

In fact, this sense of shame has connections with the deep-rooted shame associated with ‘girlishness’ that has been injected into our subconsciousness. The subtle shame when admitting that you like to read or watch Romance parallels the sense of shame that you feel when admitting your love for things that are traditionally associated with femininity and ‘girlishness’—whatever that may be—like the colour pink, make-up, pop-culture, celebrity gossips, or even astrology. Pretty, sparkly and fun—but not important, never intellectual, never able to be taken seriously. Isn’t that what girls are, anyway?

Unfortunately, the issue is not that simple. It isn’t only patriarchy at fault in the creation of such narrative; a strand of feminism may also be. After the first wave of feminism in the 19th and 20th centuries that paved the way to claiming legal and institutional equality for women—especially in regard to women’s suffrage, property rights and access to education—the second wave, spanning the 1960s through the 1980s, took a step further to challenge the traditional, limiting association of women as wife and mother. It rejected the notion that women’s lives should revolve around love, domesticity, or marriage. During this time, popular culture and commercial advertisement also adopted this narrative. Mattel, the maker of Barbie, released their first Astronaut Barbie in 1965, followed by the Surgeon Barbie in 1973 and Gold Medal Barbie in 1975, putting forward the idea that girls can do anything. Although having started from a positive note, the strategy to reject traditional images of girlhood and strip them away in order to empower women had its repercussions; nowadays, the popular internet meme ‘not like the other girls’ and the concept of ‘pick-me girls’ are prime examples of this. The idea that a girl can only be ‘cool’—or in fact just ‘better’—when she distances herself far enough from the ‘other girls’ propagates the idea that being a girl is an inherently lesser existence. This new strand of feminism has led to internalised sexism and self-loathing among girls, leaving the widespread patriarchal stereotype of women as‘too emotional’ unresolved.

The clash between the patriarchal narrative that love is all a woman is suited for and the feminist declaration that women, like men, can centre their lives around their passion and work has created confusion for young women. These two contradictory messages polarise their understanding of girlhood, leaving their relationship with romantic love in a precarious position. Since the 2000s and 2010s, popular media (including television and mainstream Hollywood films) has reinforced this binary notion of girlhood. This is the time wherein teen movies set out their female protagonists as nerdy, innocent, kind, and ‘not like the other girls’, in opposition to their malicious counterparts who fixated on their appearance; the stereotype of a ‘girly-girl’ who is dumb, mean and pretty (Mean Girls, 2004). Media was selling the very image of ‘not like the other girls’ and let me tell you, it really worked. Any girl who grew up in the early 2000s remembers the hatred one felt—or was made to feel—towards the colour pink, which now in hindsight seems almost nonsensical and rather counteractive. It was only natural, then, for third wave feminism to respond to such a negative association of girlhood and femininity with the reclamation of the symbols of femininity, emphasising that embracing traditionally ‘feminine’ traits can coexist with feminist ideals of being an independent woman. It felt like a culturally important moment when the feminist character Joe, played by Saoirse Ronan, in Little Women (2019) blurts out in her emotional speech: ‘I’m so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for. I’m so sick of it!’ only to quietly add right after: ‘But I’m so lonely’.

In 2024, it seems like few people would disagree with the fact that a feminist could look traditionally feminine, wear pink dresses, love shopping and desire to be loved. Yet the first two decades of the 2000s were a deeply interesting moment for feminism as they fed that generation of young women messages from different waves of feminism that often came across as contradictory. It was confusing: Was not being like the other girls hotter? Or should I stick with my Benefit Benetint? As a Gen Z who grew up in Korea at this time, where similarly confusing mix of narratives about girlhood were more prevalent than ever, I realised that the complex relationship I have with romantic love, intertwined with desire and shame, was rooted in the sudden influx of contradictory information that filled my girlhood. Do I want a boyfriend? Or do I want to be a cool, independent woman? It felt like I had to choose between the two.

When getting into my first ‘serious’ relationship and being struck with the blow of first love, I remember feeling extremely anxious about the sudden change that seemed to have happened to me. Funnily enough, the images that came up in my mind were the characters Anna and Elsa from the animated film Frozen (2013). I felt like I have suddenly become an ‘Anna’—who stupidly and naively falls in love with a toxic man only to find another, this time nice, man that makes her happy—when all my life, I associated myself with Elsa, the lone wolf queen with power, intelligence and skill. I began to realise the lack of diversity in media representation of girlhood and womanhood. While recent Disney films like Brave (2012), Moana (2016), Encanto (2021) and Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) do provide an alternative to the ‘Prince Charming’ trope, they often sideline romance entirely. There is still a gap when it comes to stories and role models that embrace the complexity of girlhood: that being a girl doesn’t mean choosing between self-discovery and romance, but that both can happen simultaneously. After all, what if girlhood sometimes means finding primary fulfilment in romantic relationships? What if moments where girls shine with their own passion and interest coincide with ones where they beam at their lovers? What if, God forbid, girls love ‘love’ and are still successful?

So, this is my ode to my girlies who are loud about both their situationships and their research ideas, who enjoy going on dates as much as writing, reading and working, who desire both sex and societal recognition. I look forward to the day we see Disney films that reflect the multifaceted existence of girlhood—where the protagonist locks herself in her room, engulfed in her craft, rebels against the patriarchy, saves the day, falls in love, then reunites with her friends for a night of screaming, gasping, crying, hugging, then screaming again, a lot of ‘awww’s’, then some more crying. Because, maybe, girlhood is all of these things, all at once.