Not like other girls? Or am I?

 

If there is one trope I hate it's the 'I'm not like other girls" trope. Nothing turns me off from a FMC and a story faster than the FMC claiming she's better than other women because she's not into dresses, or getting married, or she's not a slut. Whatever it is. There is no 'good way' to do this trope because if you try to subvert the trope, then it's not this trope anymore. 

Psyche and Eros by Luna McNamara tried to subvert the trope but fails because Psyche does believe she's not like other girls. When she's at Helen of Troy's wedding she's constantly thinking about how this is below her, how she doesn't want this for herself. She's a hero so this doesn't matter to her. It's very few and far between when she makes comments like thinking her cousin was better than having a crush on a boy, but they grate on me so hard I couldn't stop thinking about it. 

One story that is full on, mask off; the Protagonist is so far past 'Not like other girls' into full on misogyny, is the House of Night series by P.C and Kristin Cast. Zoe Redbird (we're not going to talk about the heavy racism in the series, it's just not my place) is constantly belittling and putting down other women, referring to them as sluts and hoes. Like the character Aphrodite, who was a high school bully in the first book, is disproportionately attacked by the narrative. Zoe loves to make fun of and shame Aphrodite, even when her own behavior becomes hypocritical. 

Zoe cheats on her boyfriend, then on her other boyfriend, then her groomer is killed, then she has another boyfriend. And one boyfriend leaves, her but the other two stay and they're kinda cool with each other, but there's also his ancient evil god who's she's made to love. She's cheating on them all by having sex with him in her dreams. And she justifies all that with 'I know this is slutty, but I'm not a slut. Not like other girls, like Aphrodite' when Aphrodite has done nothing like this. 

One story I would say tries to subvert the trope, but it's so good it's literally not even the trope is; Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao. I just finished Iron Widow the other day and it's so so so good! Wu Zetian, the FMC, is on a revenge mission; then she goes on a hunt for more and more power. Her anger comes from the sexism in her world that is actively killing girls for seemingly no reason. She always blames the source, never her fellow victims. Despite being 18/19, she never refers to herself, or the other girls her age, as women. Only girls. And that's a brilliant way to remind your audience despite them being 'adults' these are just girls being sent to their deaths.

But, Wu Zetian never ever thinks of other girls as less than. Even the ones she doesn't like, or have problems with. She never puts down anyone interests, or refers to anyone as lesser, or stupid for acting the way the world has conditioned them too. Even her mother and grandmother, who are very much complicit in her abuse, she regards their situation with so much nuance because they, themselves, are victims of their abusive husbands. She understands her mother and grandmother might feel like they have nothing else, even when she considers moving just her mother and grandmother to the city. She knows they won't leave their husbands because of that social conditioning and years and years of abuse. 

Eloise Bridgerton is maybe the one 'not like other girls' done well because she grows to learn she is wrong. In the first season she's actively putting women down, like her own sister, and deeming them for being simple minded and only being interest in gossip and marriage. She believes herself better because she wants to be a writer, she wants to be something better and shames the women in society and not society itself. She even goes so far as to attribute her believes onto Penelope. When she remarks something along the lines 'oh you don't care about marriage, you're smarter than that', Penelope snaps back that she does indeed care about getting married. 

But by the second season, when she's forced into society, we're exposed to Eloise in an awkward, less confident mindset. She doesn't care about marriage, she cares about herself as a person and she wants to be something grander; when she's given actual feminist literature, she starts to realize how the way she feels and the way women must preform is a fault of society. Not of women. 

The not like other girls trope is the worst trope because it actively creates a divide between 'This one good female' vs 'all these lesser females' and depending on what type of message is being sent (HoN with the 'all other girls are sluts' and Psy&Eros 'I'm better because I don't like boys, I don't wanna get married') changes the sort of divide being made.

There's never a discussion about the source of these issues, only assigning blame to all other women. It is a shallow understanding of the world and the society where being a woman is to preform. Blaming women for being conditioned by the society that forces us into boxes and conditions us to behave with no deeper conversation about WHY is exactly why this is the worst trope. 

You are not 'not like other girls' because every girl feels like they're not like other girls. Every girl has a time where they thing they're the only one who's experiencing emotions more than just 'happy' and 'married and wants babies' because the media and society told us that's all women are. And when we start feeling like we're not happy and we don't solely think about weddings and babies that we're different somehow, or that we're broken. 

I felt broken, and instead of lashing out towards other women, I desperately attempted to fit in. When I couldn't fit in, I dressed like an knock off hot topic punk. You're not alone if feeling isolated from your peers, you only have to open your heart and mind to knowing them as people. Not just as other girls or women. Because there's not you vs them. You're not like other girls, not because you're different from every girl; you're 'not like other girls' because ever girl is different. 

Fully functioning, fully realized creations of the world, and they're beautifully and wonderfully made. So are you :) thanks for reading my rambles