There was a time -not that long ago, which is perhaps the most unsettling part -when girlhood wasn’t something you flaunted. It was something you managed.
When I think about my formative years, my own coming-of-age film (soundtracked to Michelle Branch obviously), I don’t remember girlhood being celebrated. I remember it being negotiated. Softened at the edges. Edited for public consumption.
In primary school, I was once “called out”, gently but pointedly - because of how much I loved Hilary Duff. Loved her. Devoted. Lyric-booklet-reading, bedroom-dancing, absolutely unembarrassed devotion.
Well. Unembarrassed until I realised I was supposed to be.
By high school, the rules were clearer. Boys made kitchen jokes as if they were auditioning for a 1950s sitcom. Being “low-maintenance” was a personality trait. Being earnest was social suicide. It was cooler to like bands than female pop artists. Cooler to shrug than to squeal. Cooler to be nonchalant than to care - and caring, especially about something feminine, was the ultimate offence.
I remember feeling oddly apologetic about the fact that I went to dance classes every Saturday morning. Dance! A detail I now treasure when I think about my childhood and adolescence; the discipline, the music, the ritual of it, but which at the time felt like something that needed to be downplayed, as though joy itself required moderation.
And you certainly didn’t admit you liked a female artist unless she’d done something controversial enough to be considered
culturally subversive. I distinctly remember feeling validated saying I liked Miley Cyrus after her 2013 VMAs performance; the foam finger, the collective pearl-clutching, the public shedding of her Disney skin. Suddenly she wasn’t “like other girls.” Suddenly liking her felt ironic. Defensible. Acceptable.
Why did femininity need to be disrupted to be respected?
Why did softness require sabotage to be taken seriously?
The Quiet Curriculum of Internalised Misogyny
It would be comforting to blame this entirely on teenage boys, but that would be too easy, and inaccurate.
The culture was the teacher. We were simply diligent students.
We grew up in an era that subtly but persistently framed traditionally feminine interests as lesser: pop music was manufactured; romance was shallow; fashion was vapid; dance was unserious; teen girls were hysterical. To distance yourself from “other girls” was positioned as aspirational. We didn’t call it internalised misogyny at 14. We called it having taste.
And yet, teenage girls have always dictated what becomes cool. They are the barometer of cultural relevance. They discover artists before the industry does. They shape internet language. They move markets. The world consistently follows what young women love - just slowly enough that by the time it catches up, the girls have already moved on.
The irony is almost architectural.
Still, at 13 or 16 or 18, you don’t analyse structural misogyny. You absorb it. You perform indifference. You cultivate preferences that feel socially safe. You say you “kind of like” things you actually adore. You learn that the performance of effortlessness is more valuable than visible enthusiasm.
Nonchalance was our generation’s survival tactic.
Pop Culture, Women’s Rights, and the Strange Backlash Era
And now? We’re living in a paradox.
On one hand, women’s rights have experienced undeniable setbacks. In 2022, the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, dismantling federal abortion protections that had stood for nearly fifty years. According to recent Global Gender Gap reports, progress toward gender equality has slowed worldwide, with parity still projected to take generations at the current rate. Online, the rise of the so-called manosphere and hyper-conservative influencers has pulled some young men toward more traditional (and often regressive) views on gender roles. Surveys in several Western countries suggest that a segment of Gen Z men identify as more conservative than millennials did at the same age.
It can feel, at times, as though we are watching hard-won progress flicker.
As an Australian woman, and I say this with full awareness of the privilege embedded in geography - I recognise that my experience of safety and autonomy is not universal. Around the world, women are fighting for education, bodily autonomy, and basic legal protections. The global picture is uneven, and in many places, deeply troubling.
And yet.
The Celebration of Girlhood in the Gen Z Era
Culturally, something radical is happening.
Girlhood is not being apologised for. It’s being aestheticised. Amplified. Celebrated.
We are in an era where pop girls are not only charting - they are defining the mood. Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Olivia Dean, artists whose work leans into theatricality, vulnerability, femininity, camp, romance - are embraced without requiring a scandal as entry fee.
Television centred on longing, desire, female friendship and emotional interiority is not niche. It is dominant. Bridgerton became a global phenomenon. The Summer I Turned Pretty turned soft-focus romance into mainstream discourse. Loving these shows does not feel embarrassing. It feels communal.
The bows. The hyper-feminine fashion. The public fandoms. The earnestness. The refusal to dilute joy for credibility.
Gen Z, particularly young women, seem less interested in bargaining with misogyny for social approval. They are louder about what they love. They treat girlhood not as something to transcend but as something to inhabit..Fully. Whether that’s through hyper-femininity, androgyny, maximalism, softness, rage, glitter, or all of the above before lunch.
And perhaps most importantly, they don’t require feminine artists to prove they are “not like other girls” in order to be taken seriously.
That, in itself, feels seismic.
Why This Cultural Shift Matters
A chart-topping pop girl does not undo regressive legislation. A trending TV show does not dismantle systemic inequality. Culture is not policy.
But culture is imagination. And imagination quietly redraws the boundaries of what we consider powerful, valuable, worthy.
For those of us who grew up managing our femininity, even; editing it, sanding it down, disguising our devotion as irony - this moment feels like a reclamation. A small but significant win for girlhood.
It feels like going back to the girl who adored Hilary Duff without a trace of self-consciousness and telling her: you were not embarrassing. You were intuitive. You were aligned with yourself before the world taught you to second-guess it.
Maybe my experience wasn’t universal. Maybe it was hyper-local, shaped by a particular schoolyard, a particular era. But the resonance I feel when I see today’s celebration of girlhood suggests otherwise.
Because when I watch teenage girls scream at concerts, dissect fictional romances with doctoral-level intensity, or post dance v
ideos without a layer of defensive irony, I don’t see frivolity.
I see cultural authorship.
And in a world where headlines often signal regression - where women’s rights are contested, where progress feels precarious: the unapologetic celebration of girlhood is not trivial.
It is, in its own glossy, glittering way, quietly defiant.
Images sourced through Pinterest.