Revenge of the girl

A friend of mine, transitioning, mused that “girl” and “woman” are maybe not precisely the same gender. They do different work. She is a girl, not yet a woman. Simone de Beauvoir famously argued that you are not born a woman but become one through a process of social conditioning. Girlishness is in fashion though, slow regression towards childhood. Someone gave me silver bows for Christmas and I wore one in my hair along with a set of plastic earrings that look like slinky toy flowers and ballet pumps to a wedding where everyone else was dressed as a woman. Someone asked my mother if I was in high school.

I have already written about coquettes and childhood and the absurdity of Barbie. What is left to say about girls? I think a lot about adolescence, feel trapped in the kind of selfish bohemianness of a Carrie Bradshaw archetype. I have many more shoes than dishes, I have never used my oven, I am in a standoff with my super over who will change a lightbulb. Whenever I meet people my a…