A Frank Discussion About The Terms "Pick-Me Girl" And "Girl's Girl"
Few labels cut deeper for women than "not a girl's girl" or, rather, a "pick-me girl." This essay unpacks how these terms are not just reductive—they also foster exclusivity and perpetuate misogyny.
Are you “fox pretty” or are you “siren pretty?” Do you have the “clean girl” aesthetic or the “messy girl” aesthetic? Most importantly, are you a “pick-me” or a “girl’s girl?”
As a woman, quite possibly the worst thing another woman can call you is a “pick-me”, which is the polar opposite of a “girl’s girl”—someone that, per a plethora of TikToks by Gen Z creators, all women should aspire to be. However, rather than creating solidarity among women, both terms reinforce misogynistic constructs, whether it be internalized or overt, as they simply embody narrow experiences and expressions of femininity and womanhood.
In an era where social media amplifies and commodifies the divide between women, the labels “girl’s girl” and “pick-me girl” are stark reminders of the damaging standards imposed by the panopticon that is the modern patriarchy, reinforcing internalized misogyny and perpetuating cycles of judgment and exclusion; rather than fostering solidarity among women, these terms contribute to a toxic culture that further alienates those who navigate the complex landscape of womanhood under such scrutinies.
The Divide Between “Girl’s Girls” and “Pick- Me’s”: Or, Why Both Terms Are Deeply Exclusionary
The term “girl’s girl” is not a new one; as defined by a 2010 Urban Dictionary post, a girl’s girl is:
A girl who has respect for female etiquette. A girl who is not petty and strives to be ethical and decent in her dealings with her female friends.
Marie: Ashley just broke up with Josh, you should totally go for it!
Megan: Nuh-uh! Josh is totally off limits!
Marie: But you've been crushing on him for months.
Megan: So what? Ashley and I are friends. I'd totally be shitting on girl etiquette to go after her ex.
Marie: Wow Megan, you're a real girl's girl.
Per this 2023 TikTok by user niki_patton, a girl’s girl is not someone who puts her friends down to impress a man, judges other women for no reason, feels the need to compete with her friends, or goes for a guy her friend has feelings for. A subsequent TikTok from the same user claims that a girl’s girl can't be someone who dislikes Taylor Swift; furthermore, one of the top comments on the video states that straight girl can never be girl’s girl because she “always [picks] [her] crusty man over [her] girl friends.”
A purveyance of the top videos in the “girl’s girl” tag on TikTok reveals users making similar statements, the one most echoed being that the “girl’s girl” is the antithesis of the “pick-me” girl, and no woman ever wants to be labeled as a “pick-me.”
Anecdotally, I’ve been told that I’m not a girl’s girl based on the merit that I’d rather have a quiet night with my longterm partner than go to a frat party, and that I don’t “prioritize women” because I would rather not spend my Saturday night buying overpriced green tea shots at a nightclub on Capitol Hill (as someone who has been sexually assaulted at a nightclub before, I tend to avoid them as a general rule of thumb). A barrage of TikTok comments informed me that I wasn’t a girl’s girl because I commented that breaking your boyfriend’s nose in response to him messaging OnlyFans creators is abusive behavior and not something to be encouraged. These experiences have led me to question, what is a girl’s girl? Per my experiences and the above aforementioned TikToks, a girl’s girl cannot be heterosexual, must enjoy certain musical artists, and, at all costs, prioritize other women, even if at the expense of their partner, while simultaneously attacking other women for not adhering to the narrow expectations perpetuated by the label.
Maria Santa Poggi’s 2024 essay for Elle Magazine, entitled “How ‘She’s Not a Girl’s Girl’ Became the Worst Insult” writes:
“A ‘girl’s girl’ is a girl who prioritizes her female friendships, or she’s more girl oriented—it’s a priority rather than a ‘guy’s girl’ or a ‘pick-me girl’ [who] is the girl who is not like other girls,” says Dr. Kate Phelps, a sociology professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and author of a forthcoming book researching digital girlhood. The problematic “pick-me girl” trope (a.k.a. the cool girl monologue from Gone Girl), is a label that reeks of internalized misogyny. The insult “‘she’s not a girl’s girl’ is the latest reiteration of slut-shaming,” Dr. Phelps tells ELLE.com.
Poggi enumerates on Dr. Phelps’ argument, stating that while there’s nothing wrong with women supporting women, that the term “girl’s girl” is inherently exclusionary; it deems “which kind of girl is allowed access to the sisterhood, depending on what kind of girl she happens to be.”
Building on Poggi's assertion that the term “girl’s girl” inherently delineates who is worthy of inclusion in the sisterhood, it becomes evident that this exclusion extends to neurodivergent and autistic women, as they often find themselves further marginalized by societal expectations of femininity and friendship. In her memoir Strong Female Character, the comedian Fern Brady writes, in regards to her experience as a woman on the autism spectrum and how it affected her experiences with girlhood, that:
When I first read about the pick-me trope at university, I nodded in agreement. I thought there were definitely women like that, who failed to realize that men would never stand up for them when it came to any kind of fight for gender equality. This thought was quickly followed by horror as I trotted up every feature that matched me. I had a lot of male friends. I said I wasn't like other girls - and if I didn't say it, I was always thinking it. But I was never saying it to show that I was better than other women. All I wanted was to find out how to be like other girls and it felt increasingly impossible. The pick-me girl appears to me as just another way to dismiss female autistics.
By labeling women who do not subscribe to or relate to the girl’s girl label as being “a pick-me” girl or “not a girl’s girl",” we are dismissing the lived experiences of neurodivergent women, who may not necessarily relate to conventional expressions and experiences of womanhood. I am not autistic; however, I can relate to the feeling of not being able to relate to other women, and feeling like, to an extent, my femininity is nothing but a performance. This is not because I think I’m “better” than other women, but rather, feeling like I’m on the outside looking in on an exclusive club.
As a neurodivergent woman, I have always found it exceptionally difficult to navigate (and retain) friendships with other women. I’m horrible at picking up on social signals even on the best of days, and as stated above, I find it difficult to relate to the (largely homogenous) representations and labels associated with cisgendered girlhood and womanhood as propagated by TikTok and other social media platforms, mainly due to the fact that, as a teenager struggling with severe undiagnosed mental illness and ADHD, I struggled to fit in with and relate to my peers, which, through my time in college, led to other women labeling me as “weird” and “creepy.”1
Ultimately, the labels of “girl’s girl” and “pick-me girl” foster cycles of misogyny and division among women; those who employ such terms fail to recognize that all women, regardless of how they engage with patriarchy, deserve solidarity and understanding as they navigate their own unique struggles within its bonds. With that said, this is something that is much easier said than done, and requires unlearning and unpacking deeply-embedded constructs of internalized misogyny.
How Labeling Women As “Pick Me Girls” Reinforces A Cycle of Misogyny and Seeking Validation
In order to understand the pathos behind the pick-me girl label, one must first understand how the term originated. The term “pick- me” refers to women who put other women down for the sake of male attention and validation, often through proclaiming that they’re “not like other girls” or that they’re “one of the guys.” The roots of this trope can be traced back to early-2000s romantic comedies and most notably to Taylor Swift’s2 2008 song “You Belong With Me”, in which she derides her romantic rival for wearing “short skirts” while she wears t-shirts; “she’s the cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers.”
To fully grasp the impact of the "pick-me" label, it's essential to recognize how society has historically glorified traits that prioritize male approval over authentic female connection. As a child of the 2010s, popular media reinforced that it was “cool” to be low-maintenance and “one of the guys” and it was a largely profitable pursuit to mock teenaged girls for having stereotypically “feminine” or “girly” interests. One needs to look no further than the way the (largely teenaged girl) fandoms for One Direction, Justin Bieber, and Twilight were treated for daring to be interested in sparkling vampires and attractive men singing songs about what makes them beautiful.
This detrimental messaging not only fosters a culture of judgment but also distracts from the deeper issues at play, as evidenced by Marsha Phoebe in a 2023 essay for Women’s Media Center entitled “Why the ‘Pick Me’ Trend Is Problematic.” Phoebe argues that in disparaging the “pick me” girl, we are not “[explaining] the toxic roots of the phenomenon” but rather “[demonizing] other women.” It has been established that pick-me behavior is “problematic for internalizing misogyny, but so is the trend itself for perpetuating and sustaining continued cycles of that misogyny.” In short, vilifying a woman for pick-me behavior is not an act of feminist protest, but rather reinforces pre-existing misogynistic constructs.
Per my personal experience with women who fall into that category (though I am hesitant to use such a term), that behavior is not derived from a place of maliciousness, but rather ignorance and often a place of deep insecurity. One of my most shameful memories from middle school involved a humiliating encounter on the school bus in which my friend asked my male classmate if he would rather kiss her or I—-I was a (by all accounts) awkward teenager with a bad haircut and cystic acne, and he chose my friend. Twelve years on from that experience, I am not angry with my friend, though her behavior would certainly fall in line with the “pick-me” stereotype; rather, I pity her, as it was coming from the place of believing that the only worthwhile thing she had to contribute to society was her appearance, and that translated into the relentless pursuit of male attention—-despite the fact that we were both children who had barely started our menstruation cycles.
My middle-school humiliation augments a larger issue: rather than malicious intent, many who embody "pick-me" behaviors are grappling with their own insecurities and misguided beliefs about worth. In labeling women as “pick-me girls” and and turning it into a veritable social media trend (as of 2023, the “pick me” hashtag on TikTok has over 7.6 billion views, and the tag “pick me girl” has an upwards of three billion) we are not encouraging women to de-center men, but rather enabling the demonization and further isolation of a subgroup that has been taught that male attention is the end-all be-all. Dr. Christina Riley, a lecturer at American University who focuses on critical race theory, gender, and cultural studies, states:
Patriarchal expectations of women teach us that a woman’s value is conferred through her ability to attract a man; she is thus turned into an ‘object’ of male desire. So, many cisgender heterosexual women internalize behaviors or viewpoints that they understand as being ‘attractive’ to men […]”
While pick-me girls are complicit in upholding the patriarchy, critics of the pick-me girl fail to recognize that, like all women, they are also victims of it. In mocking pick-me girls, we are, in certain respects, blaming these women for sexism, not because we actually care about deconstructing notions of internalized and externalized misogyny, but rather because they’re easier targets than the men actually responsible. In her 2021 article for the McGill International Review entitled “The Toxic Trajectory of the #PickMeGirl Trend,” Amy Rosenbluth opines that the act of tearing women down is “fundamentally antithetical to feminism, and sincere efforts to explain and alleviate internalized misogyny are the only productive solution.” In decrying the pick-me girl, the women doing so are still positioning themselves as “superior” and being “not like other girls;” even when “creators are not seeking male validation through their shoutouts, the fact remains that they are degrading other women, essentially mimicking the Pick-Me Girl.”
To summarize a thorny, difficult topic, which undoubtedly requires more discussion and analysis beyond the scope of this essay, we need to move past shaming "pick-me girls" for their behaviors and instead nurture understanding and compassion for these women, recognizing that dismantling deeply-embedded structures of misogyny requires solidarity and action beyond TikTok ridicule, which, in the long run, is just another form of seeking validation for “not being like the other girls.”
Let’s Wrap This Shit Up, Shall We?
Let’s be real: dividing women into the labels of “girl’s girl” and “pick-me girl” does jack shit when it comes to combatting the absolute scourge that is the patriarchy. While the authors I cited in this essay state that solidarity and understanding conquers all, I believe that getting to the root of this issue is much more complex, as said solidarity and understanding requires recognizing problematic, deeply-ingrained notions of what constitutes womanhood within ourselves, as well as unlearning the societally-reinforced message that women must compete with each other in order to succeed or garner positive attention.
Ultimately, labels like “pick-me” and “girl’s girl” do little other than foster a deeper divide among women, and in many cases, is just another way to reinforce in-group superiority (the in-group being neurotypical, cisgendered, heterosexual3, and in most cases, white, women). Instead of allowing arbitrary labels to dictate our self-worth and in certain cases, serve as the basis for our very identities, we must do the necessary, and difficult, work of unpacking why we even feel the need to force those labels upon ourselves, as womanhood is so much more than liking or disliking Taylor Swift, your sexual orientation4 (though it does indubitably inform and influence said relation to), going for your friend’s man, or going clubbing on a Saturday night.
I am not a girl’s girl. I am not a pick-me. And I will absolutely never use either term to describe another woman, as, in all honesty, they’re completely asinine labels. The truth of the matter is, most women do not fit into either category, and it is beyond narrowminded and ignorant to suggest that they do; by continuing to utilize such limiting terms, we are merely further ensnaring ourselves in a veritable Ouroboros of seeking validation at the expense of other women, ultimately failing to achieve freedom from the ubiquitous patriarchy and instead perpetuating and revitalizing enduring cycles of misogyny.
With all of that said, I’d rather chew my left foot off like a rat in a trap than ever claim that I prefer men over women. The worst thing a woman did to me was talk shit—-the worst thing a man ever did to me has required years of therapy, sleepless nights, and prescribed benzodiazepines. However, I understand why some women do, as quite honestly, conversation with (heterosexual) men generally tends to be more straightforward and single-minded (with the caveat that it’s typically because they have an ulterior motive).
The irony is not lost on me that in 2024, it is considered a “pick me” trait to critique Taylor Swift. In my personal opinion, Taylor Swift is the poster child for white feminism and she largely employs feminist buzzwords for her own gain (whether it be financial or otherwise), and has made a career out of victimizing herself whilst simultaneously claiming that doing so is an act of subversive feminist protest. Furthermore, she encourages an intense parasocial relationship with her fans (“Swifties”) and it disturbs me how they find it reasonable to doxx and send death threats to her critics. With all of that said, I would be lying if I said that her album “Reputation” wasn’t a bop and a half, and when she’s not busy writing self-pitying and largely incomprehensible lyrics about her short-lived relationship with Matty Healy (tattooed golden retriever, anyone?) or firing potshots at Kim Kardashian, she is a fairly competent lyricist and songwriter. Anyways!
I say “heterosexual” as the overwhelming majority of TikToks regarding “girl’s girls” and “pick-me’s” are, despite their best efforts, decidedly centered around men. If self-proclaimed girl’s girls claim that their end-goal is decentering men, why is it that the majority of their content seems revolve around them?
With that said, as a queer woman, I would be lying if I said that my sexual orientation hasn’t influenced my relationship with and perception of womanhood. I also think it is important to acknowledge that this essay is merely my interpretation of the pick-me girl/girl’s girl divide through the lens of being a white cisgendered woman, and that this issue is undoubtedly more complex for nonbinary and transgender individuals, as well as women of color.
This is so true- I hadn't considered how messed up it is for women to blame other women for the enduring brainwashing of patriarchal belief systems. When can we all band together and realize that men are the problem!