#growing up female

[sh4rpobjects]

Girlhood

“Women are born with pain built in”

[libraryidealist]

I have a beautiful friend

I have a beautiful friend. Half a year younger than me, with almond eyes and skin maybe two to three shades darker than caramel. Dusty sunset. It reminds me of spices and the billowing fumes of a barista coffee machine.

She has Columbian heritage, with glossy, thick black hair and long eye lashes. Dark eyes, bright teeth. She laughs big, smiles wide. The slight figure of a doe. She gets excited about everything. She's naive. She's adorable. She wants to explore.

She's beautiful, everyone tells her. She's terrified.

My friend sees the eyes. Of course she does. They're not admiring. They're predatory. She wears who she is on her sleeve, and she's a wondering, easily amazed person. She wants to be happy. Oh, have you ever heard of a better rape victim.

She wants to kiss someone. She wants to be in a relationship, with cuddles and pinky finger promises. She wants to be desired.

We smile. We watch her drink. We make sure she gets home afterwards.

Beauty is a lot of things. But I'd wager to say that no matter if you've carefully cultivated it yourself, were born into it, want it, use it, hate it, are aware of it

Broken down, all social veneers and descriptors stripped away,

It attracts attention.

Oh, Silvia Plath was right.

[misespinas]

I really hate how normal experiences for people are tainted just because you're a woman

The other day my manager I get along with offered to drive me home because it was pouring out. But the last time someone from work drove me home was my boss from my old job months ago, and he kept being creepy the whole time. Now I associate cars as a cage where you're subjected to the driver's torment until they let you go

And realistically my current manager would never do anything like that: he's very sweet and has helped me out with weird customers in the past. My (male) coworkers mention getting dropped home by him and other managers after closing, so getting a ride home isn't weird in our work culture

But I also didn't think my old boss would do anything inappropriate, so I can't let my guard down

[cmonbartender]

Houma Teenage Beauty Contest (1971) - Abigail Heyman

[personal-blog243]

I hope this isn’t a spoiler for “that 90’s show” but I like that they don’t have as many sexist jokes that didn’t age well.

They don’t have any “milf” jokes or jokes about walking in on women changing clothes. They don’t have any jokes about stealing girls underwear like in the original “that 70’s show”

It’s a nice change.

For the record I don’t know if the original 70’s show actually justified bad behavior because I think the women were portrayed decently for the time. Donna is a feminist icon. I’m not saying it should be “cancelled” I’m just saying they were teens in the 70’s 🤷🏼‍♀️

[wariosdogballs]

All i want to do is write about the horror of girlhood, the horror of girlhood during the time right as the Internet was becoming mainstream.

Not in the campy "gen z horror we're so self aware way," but rather in the way the Babadook and Hereditary or We Need To Talk About Kevin writes about motherhood.

I want to write about girlhood as it is, deeply and horribly traumatic.

[realhankmccoy]

I think this was the first feminist film to come out of 2nd wave feminism

So I'm watching it

[eccedentesiast-skies]

You’ve grown into someone who would have protected you as a child. And that is the most powerful move you made.

[libraryidealist]

A young student's selfie

Early summer, just before our last summer holidays, we got into a discussion with a teacher at recess.

He had a topic for us. Evidence. An opinion.

One more year and we'd be done with school. We felt so mature.

His discussion? Why, young girls and body images of course.

Oh, we were so in. He started on the young girls in his class, how they dressed. How they walked. How social media was trapping them. We nodded along, thinking we were talking about the same thing.

We thought we were talking about Instagram's clutch on our young sisters. The twelve year olds with eating disorders. The sleekly styled hair of middle schoolers with baby fat and round eyes.

He pulled out a photo.

A girl. We'd seen her. It was a good pic, her at eye level with a statue in a museum they'd gone to. A class trip. She'd asked this teacher to make the picture of her, all golden curls and brown lashes.

Look at what I had to photograph, he said. Showing us the lace bra peeking through her shirt, the pose she stroke like she was twenty-five.

We said all the right things. How horrifying it was. That society shouldn't do this to girls. Satisfied, he left, pocketing his phone.

That was two months ago.

Someone realised it yesterday. That class trip to the museum was four months ago.

He had kept the picture of her on his camera roll.

Lace bra and baby round eyes.

[ihatemakingusernames]

I think it's cute how people have these goal weights. Like "oh I'll get to 450 and then I'll stop." No you won't. Honestly, you've spent so much time utterly destroying any healthy habit you've ever had and you think once the scale hits a specific number you can just stop? That's not how this works. Sure, sure you can try and eat healthy, you can try and exercise but, do you realize how much willpower it takes to actually lose weight? Or in your case, to maintain? You've spent all this time increasing your capacity, literally stretching your stomach out to grow this big and you think your greedy ass can just stop? I don't think so. You can try... Go ahead, but you'll likely fail time and time again. If it was that easy to lose weight we'd all be thin at one point or another.

[cmonbartender]

Growing Up Female (1974) - Abigail Heyman

[personal-blog243]

Conservative religious parents: I WILL VIOLENTLY MURDER ANY BOY WHO HAPPENS TO BE GLANCING IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION BECAUSE YOUR VAGINA IS MY PRIVATE PROPERTY TO SAVE THE PROPERTY VALUES OF!!!!

Also conservative religious parents: why aren’t you married yet???

[otaku553]

I have an agenda.

Long hair teenage sabo.

[fattyzoey]

Been a while here

Support my growth

Make me bigger

Feed me.

[growmybelly]

I’m just a few pounds away from 300 and I’m still feeling like I’m not nearly big enough