graphic by kayleigh woltal
If there’s anything we’ve learned from our Lord and Savior Barbie, it’s that growing up a woman is one of the most amazing, unique things in the world. Wearing pink with your friends, dancing in the backyard, tracing your grandmother’s beautiful wrinkles in hopes of living a life so grand that you may resemble her deep smile lines, leaning on other women during your hard times. These are just a few of the gorgeous and important pieces of being a woman that the Barbie movie highlights. However, the Barbie movie also highlights how growing up a woman can also be one of the most painful experiences in the world. In the Real World, there’s harassment, patriarchy, self-doubt, tears, frustration and perhaps the most unexpected — cellulite. Even Barbie herself says, “I’m not good enough for anything,” once she experiences the Real World, which leads into one of my all-time favorite monologues in film history (second only to Amy’s marriage monologue in Little Women). Being a woman is stunningly catastrophic. This was true for centuries before I was born, and I’m sure it will be true for centuries after I’m gone. However, the difference between past generations of women and me is that I have access to every single piece of information in the world on a brick I’ve carried around with me everywhere since sixth grade.
Social media — at its beginning — had good intentions. It was so shiny and new! There was instant connection at our fingertips! This future was here! I could watch my family’s lives unfold through Facebook or Instagram despite living hundreds of miles away. I learned more about the world around me, and most importantly, the unique perspectives from those of other lived experiences (thank you, Lesbian Master Doc, for your service). I was introduced to new music, films and television. I built long-lasting friendships with people I would have never crossed paths with in person. At its beginning, it was good. And yet, when I look back, all I see are glaring red flags.
This beginnings of the internet is lovingly referred to as “The Wild West of the Internet.” I’m sure you can picture it: 2014 grunge Tumblr ruled by Lana Del Rey and Matty Healy and their overglorified smoking habits; beauty influencers like Bethany Mota and Manny MUA teaching you how to contour your face to the high heavens; cult like stan culture forming around bands like One Direction and Five Seconds of Summer. There was an incredible amount of creativity and freedom, but with that came a lot of chaos and unregulated content.
So while I could spend my days learning about physics from Hank Green, I spent many nights spiraling through Reddit threads and Wikipedia rabbit holes on true crime and scary Creepy Pasta stories. The internet was not designed with the safety of young people — especially girls — in mind. Euro-centric, ableist, and fat-phobic body messaging filled our Pinterest boards disguised as “health and beauty tips”— I can’t tell you how many times I tried a “homemade” remedy for my chronic teenage acne that actually ended up making my skin worse. Young female bodies were oversexualized in media like the Carl’s Jr. burger ads and then torn apart with slut-shaming and toxic double standards. Then — for the final nail in the coffin — other women were made out to be competition. It was shameful to be feminine, and the constant carrot dangled over our still-growing heads was that one day, if we worked hard enough and tore down other women enough, we could potentially be respected enough to be “one of the boys.” But we also wanted to be seen as an actual person with actual thoughts and feelings and not just a fucking sex toy. But nobody would listen to you if you weren’t wearing the right clothes or the right makeup. But in order to do that, you have to play into the femininity you have been shamed for, and thus the cycle continues. So, as my screen time went up, so did my anxiety and depression levels.
In her book, “The Beauty Myth,” Naomi Wolf asks, “What are other women really thinking, feeling, experiencing, when they slip away from the gaze and culture of men?” And I think, or at least hope, we are finding answers to that question with the rise of content creators like Drew Afualo (@drewafualo), Madeline Ford (@madelineaford), Cas Jerome (@casjerome) who call out misogynists and videos detailing “how I love being a woman!” or how important and powerful feminine rage is. I can’t go back and change what social media did to my mental health but I can document it and point out its gritty details and stop it from ever happening again.
So, when I walked into the movies wearing pink and sparkly cowgirl boots to a chorus of “Hi, Barbie!” or saw girls crying and hugging their moms after the Barbie movie or women going to Target to get “their Barbie” based on their interests or their jobs, I felt like I could finally breathe. I felt like I wanted to take thirteen-year-old me by the shoulders and shake her and tell her it’s okay if she wants to be a mother or a writer or an actor or a doctor or all of it or none of it. I felt like crying every time I saw pictures of the little girls on Tiktok wearing paint-splattered overalls turn into insecure, scared teenagers without a purpose because pleasing men has somehow become number one on our list of shit to do. I felt like I was connecting with the little girl inside me for the first time in years. After years of unlearning and then relearning, I can look back at “The Wild West” and find a way to move on or let it rest. If you ask any woman who used social media while growing up during that time if they have any horror stories, I guarantee you they do. But I can also guarantee you they’ve found their own slice of Barbie Land there, too. It is hard won and glorious and pink. We can breathe in that space we’ve carved out for ourselves. I hope our daughters will have more space and aspire to do more than just be a human in a place that never saw us as more than the butt of a joke.