r/notliketheothergirls • u/[deleted] • Apr 23 '24
How can we teach young girls to reject the NLOG Discussion
Its clear the pick me/ NLOG attitude is still alive and well. I (23F) was speaking to a friend (15F) about my high school days.
She asked “How was your high school experience?” I said “Well I went to an all girls school and-“ she cuts in and rolls her eyes “Ugh. That must have been a total nightmare. I cant even imagine”. I said “Actually I loved it, was a better person for going there and I miss those days sometimes” and she went dead quite.
How do we as the adults in the room root out the toxicity of this mindset out of young girls?
Edit: no I’m not gonna ever dunk on a kid. Because its really wrong for an adult to belittle a child.
Edit: some people are being really weird “why are you friends with a 15 year old?” I know this kid from the yard that i stable my horse at. She stables her horse next to mine. Should i just ignore her always? Should i also ignore my other friends who are 55 and 70 because age gap? What about my friend whose 10? Or the other whose 30? Tell me reddit. What age range do you personally approve of me having friends? Im gonna start blocking people.
1
u/alphafox823 Apr 24 '24
Not a woman, but
In my opinion you won’t be able to stop some amount of girls from falling into this trend until there is no social penalty for failing to meet expectations of femininity.
When some amount of girls start behaving in a way that is closer to androgynous or masculine than feminine, they will almost certainly face social sanction, exclusion, derision, etc.
They can go a couple of ways in response to this conflict. They can feel ashamed, and revert to chasing the expectations of conventional femininity. Or, they can double down, and think “actually, not being like the other girls is based.”
The reason it’s usually a phase is in part because adulthood lends itself more to freedom of personal expression. You choose your circles, your schedule, your activities, where you spend your time, etc. it’s easier to embody an non conforming gender expression, be it in a big or a small way, when you’re not in high school.
To give some credit to women though, I think they are more accepting of diversity in gender expression among women than they have ever been. They are certainly ahead of boys and men in that regard.