Good Girls Don’t Make History

“Good Girls Don’t Make History” – Alessia Cara

I heard this and it stuck. It is not even the title of the song, but just part of it.

Why did it stick? Maybe because women are told their whole lives to be a “good girl”. But what does that really mean?

Does it mean to be kind? Polite? Respectful? That is just being a decent human being.. so that can’t be it, because then it wouldn’t be gendered.

No.

Being a “Good Girl”, means to fulfill the stereotype of a “lady”. But let’s go over how contradicting being a “lady” can be…

• Cover Up
• Don’t be a Prude
• Close Your Legs
• Wear Makeup
• Natural Beauty is Best
• Don’t Talk Too Much
• Say Something, You’re Too Quiet
• There are Boundaries
• Keep This a Secret
• Smile More
• Grin Less
• You’re Not Allowed to be In a Bad Mood
• You’re in Too Much of a Good Mood… Tone it Down
• Don’t Drink Too Much
• Why Aren’t You Drinking? Let Loose.
• … Do I go on?

I have struggled with the concept of “being a lady”, it makes me cringe. I will never tell a child they are not acting like a lady, I will never guide them to how to be one because it’s a sexist concept that doesn’t allow you to be yourself.

If we look throughout history all the women that made it there, that we know, or maybe even have to do some research to find, they were definitely not “ladylike”. Especially in the era that they developed their research, concepts and even just protesting legends. These women in history, they found themselves, they found out who they were, not what society wanted them to be.

They were anything but “good girls”, they were women that knew what was right, that accepted their bodies, their minds; they fought, they got arrested, and some of them even died striving for what they believed in. These women did not make it into the books that we hold so dearly because they listened to what everyone else wanted them to be, they made it there because they punched a few people on the way to where they were meant to be.

• Simone de Beauvoir
• Amelia Earhart
• Rosa Parks
• Viola Desmond
• Indira Ghandi
• Wangari Maathai
• Malala Yousafzai
• … and so many more!

These women that I have listed above, they were icons, they were law breakers, they were not “good girls”, they are honourable people, they made history because they fought back, not because they abided.

This is an approach we all need to take on life, even if it is not to the extreme. Living life the way that society wants you to, or your parents, or your family, that’s not living your life, that’s living theirs.

There are people that will get angry with you.

There are people that will never speak to you again.

There are relationships that will feel different and uncomfortable.

Those are the people you don’t need, those are the people holding you back from the changes, the difference, and the person you were meant to be.

Go make your own history.