The Summer of Girlhood

Summer has come to an end. An autumnal wind has swept up summer's litter and ushered in falling leaves. And with summer’s passing, goes the season of girlhood we’ve shared. We’ve all felt it I’m sure, from The Eras Tour and Renaissance to the Barbie movie, hell all the way down to “GIRL Dinner,” it seems the summer’s hottest trend was femininity dressed in Steve Madden Hot Pink. 

This summer, an inclusive, all-encompassing celebration of womanhood, girlhood, and all that comes with it. “How I love being a woman,” “I’m a Lucky Girl,” and “We were girls together….” rolling off the tongues of even the most butch mascs. 

But how did we get here? If I’m not wrong…being a woman, is bad? Right? We’re morally irreprehensible, competitive, monstrous minxes, who don’t deserve things like bodily autonomy or fair wages. How did it become that women saved the U.S. economy via their frivolous consumerism? How did we come to celebrate what is clearly so inferior to our Alpha Whole Milk Man Overlords? 

No, wait–can I actually try to talk about gender in a nuanced way for a second? Sorry, ok: 

I uh–I don’t love being a woman. I’m cool with it, right? I go by She/They. I toe the line. I often refer to my “womanhood,” within the lens of allyship with other women. Though, in my past, I’d be quick to call a fellow girl a dumb skank, if she happened to be dating a guy I liked. (Don’t worry, only behind their back…in my diary…ah, high school. Also, look at me, being vulnerable and flawed, isn’t it so hot?)

Obviously, I grew up a “not like other girls,” girl. My proximity to men determined my definition of femininity. I’d rough house with other girls’ crushes, and lecture them when they called me out on it. “He’s just my boy friend, not my boyfriend,” an oft-heard refrained in my schoolyard. 

Around other girls, I felt, clunky, awkward, and out of place. (Was it the internalized misogyny, or the closeted queer identity, the world may never know.) 

It wasn’t until very recently I recognized the power of female friendships. 

Nobody fucking quote Dolly Alderton’s “Everything I know about love I learned from my female friendships,” at me. Jesus, Dolly, we get it! You have a tight-knit circle of gal pals! You’re lucky, Dolly! It isn’t so easy when society teaches you from an early age that other women are competition, and you grew up with two older brothers! 

Still though, sitting in the dimmed theatre of Barbie, screaming at The Eras Tour–both excursions I attended with my mom–I found tears welling in my eyes. Tears, mostly inspired by the power of women. The beauty of women! The absolutely awe-inspiring brilliance, and community of womanhood. And I wept for all those who could not experience this feeling, whether for lack of interest or from exclusion. I hoped that someday we could all be embraced by a loving, supportive community, as I felt this summer. 

This summer, I did things I’d never done before. I spoke to strangers. While sporting a friendship bracelet, I’d slide it off my wrist, onto a passingby swiftie. If I saw a pretty girl on the street, we didn’t just share a smile, but a “Hi, Barbie!” It was the most beautiful, random, and kind of embarrassing kindness I’ve ever been a part of. 

Ultimately, it makes me consider our generation’s definition of feminism. I’m talking about Zillennials, here baby. 

And the definitions of generations prior. Millennials, Gen X, and Boomers, I’m coming for your throats. 

I encountered two interesting interactions over the past year with older feminists. 

1. My mother’s tennis friends were reluctant to see the Barbie movie with her. They guffawed at the idea of wasting their time and money at such an event. 

1. An older female, millennial boss of mine laughed at me when I mentioned my love for Miss America. 

My mother says “They just see Barbie as the enemy.” 

My boss said, “I never considered you as someone who likes Miss America, Jet.” 

Let me say, here and now. I love Miss America. I always have. Despite my elementary school proclamations of tomboyhood, I was very obviously a self-loathing girlie girl. My bedroom had pink walls and lime-green pillows. I wore exclusively sequins and had an impressive bow collection. I took ballet and loved to watch Miss America. My mom and I would stream the preliminaries, and pick our top ten before the broadcast. We’d make a frozen pizza, and I’d run to the kitchen between commercials for refills on my lemonade. 

I was so envious of the girls during their opening dance number and talent portions. It looked so fun! However, that envy dissipated during the swimsuit and interview portions. 

Frequently, I’d cry when Miss America was crowned. A pinnacle of femininity, America’s representative, a strong, outgoing, poised young woman’s future forever changed with the awarding of a crown. 

As I got older though, I noticed it was uncool to like Miss America. In particular, once I watched John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight Segment on the pageant, I knew that my love for the pageant had to be locked away, much like the Barbie dolls trapped in my toy chest.

But my love for femininity still lived within me, as I adopted an all-black wardrobe and an apathetic air. My obsession with all that glitters, trapped in a golden little corner of my heart, unknown to the outside world. 

And as I moved into college, to me, it looked like there were two types of women (remember, I’m writing to the person I was before my feminist self-actualization,) there was me, a guy’s girl, a cool sauntering cucumber. And then there were…the other girls. Those who rushed sororities, and wore skirts to 8 AM Psych 101, and looked like they were having a lot more fun than I was having. And let’s be perfectly honest, I loathed them. I hated how free they were. But at the time, I didn’t think of them as free, I thought of them as trapped. Locked into hyper-femininity by the bars of misogyny! Someone had to rescue them! And it was not going to be me! 

Then something shocking happened, a girl who I went to college with, a smart girl, a cool girl, entered the Miss New Jersey State Pageant. She was crowned Miss Shore Resort 2022 and estastically announced her win on Instagram. 

“It is an honor to have been trusted with this job. I cannot wait to see what the next year has in store, not just for me, but all of the wonderful, talented, and intelligent girls I have met within the Miss America Organization.”  

So I sat down with her for a Zoom interview to discuss her experience participating in the pageants. She began our interview with an apology, “I’m so sorry I look like this, I have self-tanner on for a pageant tomorrow.” 

She was enthusiastic to compete the next day, as it was a touchstone competition for her friend, Amy Phillips, who would be “crowning out,” of the competition. Tomorrow would be a celebration of her friend’s pageant legacy, as well as a competition for Belle. To her, “that in of itself is a testament to what sisterhood actually is within the organization. For me tomorrow is really special because I’m not focusing on myself, I’m focusing on honoring my friend, who has been such an amazing confidant to me.” 

The day would be Belle’s sixth competition in the Miss America organization. She’d initially entered the competition as a way of finding direction post-graduation. “I was feeling really lost.” 

Her mother suggested she enroll in pageants, for a chance at scholarship money. (Belle was considering grad school.) At first, Belle was resistant to the idea of competing. 

Perhaps she felt the way I had: I’m not that type of girl. 

But unlike me, Belle didn’t let that stop her. She entered Miss Shore Resort, just two weeks before the competition. And she went home with the scholarship prize, as well as the crown and entry into Miss New Jersey. 

Before Miss New Jersey week, Belle expanded upon her community service initiative, Shout Our Struggle, a platform focused on “utilizing survivor experience and evidence-based techniques, to support our communities for mental health and resilience.”

Her work as Miss Atlantic Shores brought her to many community outreach events, alongside Miss Ocean View’s Teen, Brooke Meisenhelter. The two developed a fast friendship, and Belle tells the story of a school outreach event they attended together:

“Brooke and I instantly clicked and I found myself stepping into a big sister role. At this speaking engagement, Brooke and I shared our community service initiatives, mine obviously being mental health, and Brooke’s revolving around bullying. I was advising this group of 6th graders, who obviously don’t label their mental struggle with diagnoses like ‘anxiety,’ and I mentioned how essential it is to speak up when you’re struggling, and maybe doing so by sharing your feelings with a trusted adult. Then Brooke spoke up, and said ‘Yes, when I was experiencing those feelings, I went to Belle.”

She smiles, “And I was like, ‘Oh, my heart!’” She cluthes her chest, we laugh.

“Brooke and I then go out to dinner after the event and we both get a DM from this young girl, who’d heard us speak, which essentially said ‘Thank you so much for coming to my school. I’ve been struggling with grief and anxiety, and I never said anything because I was afraid of not being taking seriously.’”

Belle’s eyes shone, “‘but because of your talk today, I spoke with my Mom, and she’s gonna put me into therapy.’”

Belle laughs, before tilting her head back to stop tears, “UGH!”

We share a laugh, as I’m about to cry too.

Through working with the Miss Ameria organization Belle feels she became the woman she needed when she was in the depths of her own mental health struggle. She realized, “This is who I am, and I’m stronger because of it, and I’m going to change the world because I’ve learned how to overcome and I can help others do the same. This can be my purpose, because of Miss America.” 

She went on to say “I think many women would say, Miss America helped me find my purpose.” 

I stopped in the middle of the interview to tell Belle point-blank, “I want to make sure you don’t feel like you have to defend Miss America, I love Miss America.” 

Belle smiled, “OK!” 

We then monologued at each other, recollecting instances in which we’d had to defend our femininity, and for Belle specifically, had to defend her participation in pageants. As though partaking in a scholarship competition revokes you of your feminism membership card. 

I left the Zoom with Belle, and proceeded to skip down Broadway, on my way to work. I smiled at every passberby, and called my mom to share the success of the conversation. I couldn’t tell from where my enthusiasm was stemming. From a successful interview for my blog, or from the intellectually stimulating conversation about feminity and feminism with a really kickass woman. 

It was then, as I was writing this, that I came to the realization: if this summer was a celebration of girlhood, it cannot just be a passing trend. It has to be a homecoming. A shedding of patriarchy and a radical celebration of women, all women, must continue for the world to change for the better. 

Without women after all, there would be no life. There would be no stories. No joy. We need to celebrate our experience, otherwise, the male/non-female experience will continue to be the default narrative. 

We must find, whatever you may call it, sisterhood, community or allyship, with one another. And not just in the movie theatres for Barbie, or in stadiums for Renaissance or The Eras Tour. Not just in online quips on TikTok. We need to create free, inclusive spaces for women, and those that identify with the feminine experience. Femininity must be for all, otherwise, we risk femininity being restricted to a few, and ultimately, lost. 

We need to do what Miss America has done in recent years, shed the idea that we’re competing against one another, and realize we’re working for one another. 

In researching for this piece, I found a video of Belle and her friend Amy Phillips from Amy’s final competition. In the video, Belle unpins Amy’s crown, and takes it off, for the last time. The two smile, as they blink back tears. Belle eventually lifts the crown gently off Amy’s head and wraps her arms around her. They both laugh at their emotions but sit in the moment completely. Choking out whispered, “I love yous.”

 In the background plays Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For,” a song famously included in the Barbie soundtrack—two women, holding each other through this life. 

If celebrating femininity is a trend, may it be timeless.