With the current popularity of social media, more and more lives are becoming public information. Although social media is, in numerous ways, a great way to communicate, spread information, and more, it is also a way for other media issues to become more ingrained in our heads. Through alternative media forms like TV, film, or magazines, we receive messages about what is okay and what is not from a very young age. The characters in our favorite shows tell us how we need to be for boys to like us. But how many times are these shows written by women, for women? With social media, every little thing we do can be criticized in a new way. It feels as if it has become this constant trend to be hateful towards women and especially girls for everything and anything we do. I think the first example of this that I picked up on was the “VSCO girl” trend of 2019. 

A VSCO girl is “an insult, for a young, usually white woman who posts trendy pictures of herself edited on the app VSCO.” All over social media were videos making fun of these VSCO girls to such an extent that it seeped into real life. I joined in on the fun with every other kid in my grade. I didn’t think of it as anything specific except a stupid trend. Because of this, every girl was called a “VSCO girl” and we were somehow forced to defend ourselves for no real reason. That’s not to say that this had that big of an impact on people, as it was short-lived and quickly became irrelevant but this kind of trend is ongoing.

During quarantine, for example, I started to notice patterns. There are more and more groups of people who are criticized on social media simply because they are women. To name a few, there are “gamer girls,” “fangirls,”, and “pick me” girls. In each case, women are being torn apart for something they like or something that society has told them to do. These terms target young girls more than anyone else. This all plays into the idea that women and girls only exist for the pleasure of men and boys. The male gaze is nothing new. To name a few things, young girls under the male gaze are torn apart for how they act or dress, the amount of makeup they wear, their hobbies, their sexuality or lack of sexuality, and the way they evince emotions. Through social media, this hatred has not only spread rapidly but there is also so much more of it. This can be extremely damaging to anyone but especially to young women.

This criticism has transferred into the real world even more than we realize. It has existed outside of social media before but has become an even more prevalent issue. For example, if I tell someone something I’m interested in (regardless of whether or not it’s considered feminine), that person will smile and look at their friend. Their smile is a silent mocking of something that makes me happy. Apparently, I cannot like the music I listen to, the people I support, the things I do for fun, and I cannot talk about things that are important to me. And it’s not just me. If we do something that’s considered feminine, people say we’re playing into the standard or that we’re “too girly.” Then if we do something considered masculine then suddenly we’re trying too hard, we’re “pick me’s,”, or “not like other girls.” It’s never enough and no one can ever be enough.

This frustrating cycle happens all the time in ways that can seem entirely normal to others. I think it has become so subtle that no one picks up on it, especially online. Just scrolling through TikTok I’m sure you will come across a video of a girl or woman doing anything and every comment will be laughing at her. When I first got social media at around 10 years old, I took these as mental notes for what I shouldn’t do. But there comes a point where it doesn’t really matter. This isn’t just a TikTok thing, this isn’t just a media thing, it is all the time and everywhere.  

This constant critique, whether directly or not, has skewed my definitions of perfection and who can qualify as perfect. Without social media, I may have a completely different idea of “perfection” but that’s not what the media wants nor what the patriarchy will allow. This is different for all women and can be damaging in different ways. 

In Ileana Jiménez’s Feminist Theory & Literature class ,we prepared for writing these blogs by reading a poem in Monika Radojevic’s collection, Teeth in the Back of my Neck, titled “To be a Woman.” We read her poetry as an exercise to connect ourselves to the writing and one line in particular stuck out to me. The line read: “Perfection is a concrete slab that encases our feet, heavy enough to make us stand very still, as double standards walk in and out of the room.” This reminded me of my work for this blog and how really a lot of the pain that comes from this criticism is from a longing to somehow reach perfection. Perfection, as the line explains, weighs us down so much that we not only cannot move but cannot stop these double standards. 

The line also resonated with me because I feel this weight constantly as I’m sure many others do. I want so desperately to be perfect that it sinks me into the ground. I want so desperately to be perfect that I can no longer get up. Perfection is not something that we have made up entirely for ourselves, it is something that we have learned throughout our lives. It is quietly screamed at us all the time that the voice in our head telling us we are good enough can be drowned out or scared away by the noise. That’s why these set standards are so effective and that’s why constant access to them through social media is extremely harmful.

All of this is not to say I’m somehow above it all. Internalized misogyny is so deeply rooted in quite literally everything we do and all media we consume. No one is truly above it. It’s not just men throwing around insults, it’s everyone. We often don’t even realize the damage of ideas like this and we end up becoming a part of the problem. Not only can this hurt other women but it can hurt us as girls. We suddenly can become almost too aware of everything that we do that is considered “not okay” in one way or another and we feel powerless. Acknowledging the problem is only the minuscule first step towards the right direction but it is something. 

If more people were aware of the way the media is used against women and that it’s okay to not fit this standard, the more people may feel happier to be themselves. If more women were in charge of the media that goes out to young women, that could also be a way for us to have a fighting chance. There are smaller ways to help as well. I think the main thing is to not just be a bystander when you see this occur both online and in a setting like a school.

This judgment and this powerlessness are ways of using the master’s tools to silence women. It is telling us that we are never enough without saying the actual words. The only way we can ever be okay is by becoming not only people we are not but barely people at all. Audre Lorde talks about the master’s tools in her speech, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” spoken at the Second Sex Conference in September 1979. The speech explains that to make any real change in our world, we must create new tools for that change. Systems that were created to keep people in their supposed places can seldom help incite change. 

That is why we need to create new systems that benefit those the current system fights to keep down. In this case, the master’s tools include social media and the media in general that are the vessels for this kind of constant hatred. The master’s tools also include the male gaze and the idea that women only exist for men. The master’s tools include gender roles. To create these impossible standards for women is to silence them in a uniquely cruel and lonely way. These tools ensure that men stay in power and everyone else stays below that. 

I would also like to point out that the word “women ” includes so many different people who are uniquely affected by social media due to their identities. My concept of perfection or my difficulties with the criticism as a cisgender white woman will be completely different to a Black trans woman who is exposed to the same media, for example. Internalized misogyny also feeds off of these systems and affects women of different backgrounds in different ways. It teaches women to hate other women because when we are separate from each other, how can anything change? How can we know that we are not truly alone in this fight when we are silenced?

All of this is why it is so important that we have spaces like this very high school feminism class that has inspired us all to write. When we can talk openly about our experiences and acknowledge and embrace our differences, we can open up a space where we can not only feel safe and seen but where we can spark real change. If we can create more platforms that support women rather than tear them down, this sense of perfection or a lack of it wouldn’t be nearly as prominent.