From a young age, a girl learns that being good is her highest achievement, but deciphering how to embody that ideal is complex. Experiences shape her understanding of behavior, particularly fear of being labeled as a bad girl. This fear drives her to conform strictly to societal expectations of behavior. Observations of others, particularly a bad girl who exhibits wildness, elicit not just horror but an underlying resonance with her own suppressed desires. These experiences profoundly impact her self-perception and behavior, guiding her into compliance with expected norms.
I understood from a young age that, as a girl, goodness would be my supreme achievement—my calling in life. However, how to embody this essence took time to decode.
As powerful and incentivizing as the idea of being a good girl was, the bad girl label was probably more powerful in encouraging me to avoid it at all costs.
The threat of being labeled a bad girl was powerful enough for me to remain strictly within a narrow set of ideas of how I needed to behave.
I was immediately scared of what she might try to make me do. I felt her wildness inside me too but had pushed it far down.
#gender-roles #childhood-experiences #goodness-and-badness #fear-of-societal-judgment #identity-formation
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