Who Are We Asking Our Girls To Be?

I’m currently training to extend my therapeutic work to adolescents, and spending more time thinking about what it means to be a girl growing up now.

There is something I have been noticing that I find both fascinating and uncomfortable.

Girls quite rightly are taught that they should look after one another. We talk about sisterhood, solidarity, having each other’s backs and, increasingly, about girl code. These are beautiful and important ideas.

But I wonder what happens when a moral code designed to protect girls becomes a way of policing them.

Because sometimes, underneath the language of girl code, there seems to be something else happening.

A girl steps outside the accepted rules. She attracts attention. She may be confident, successful, outspoken, ambitious, sexually expressive, talented — or simply different.

And suddenly there is a collective sense that she needs to be brought back into line.

Sometimes there may be a genuine hurt underneath this. Girls can behave badly towards one another. Friendships can be broken. Boundaries can be crossed. People can be treated thoughtlessly. Of course these things deserve to be talked about and, where necessary, repaired.

But I am interested in the point at which accountability becomes punishment.

At the point where a girl has done something imperfect and the response becomes disproportionate.

At the point where other girls aren't simply saying, “That hurt me”, but collectively deciding what kind of girl she is.

At the point where exclusion, humiliation, gossip or social punishment become justified because they have been placed underneath the umbrella of something morally good: we're just standing up for girls.

I think this deserves our attention.

Because I wonder whether some of what we call “girl code” can sometimes become a socially acceptable way of making another girl smaller.

And I don't think this starts with women.

I think we can see the beginnings of it in young girls.

The girl who makes other girls uncomfortable

I love the outlook of female activist and cultural commentator Florence Given. Her message is simple: she encourages women to take up so much space that they provoke the question from other women —and the title of her latest book:

“Who does she think she is?”

Who does she think she is, to be that confident?

Who does she think she is, to want that much?

Who does she think she is, to be that successful?

Who does she think she is, to be that visible?

Who does she think she is, to behave as though she is allowed to take up that much space?

Given argues that women are often socialised to make themselves smaller in order not to threaten other women — and that we can sometimes enforce this expectation upon one another.

What particularly interests me is the way this can become disguised as morality, hidden under 'girl code'. She describes it as the 'sisterhood wound'.

Instead of saying:

“Her confidence makes me feel insecure.”

We might say:

“She's arrogant.”

Instead of:

“I'm jealous of the attention she's getting.”

We might say:

“She thinks she's better than everyone.”

Instead of:

“I don't like that she has something I want.”

We might say:

“She shouldn't have done that.”

And sometimes those criticisms will contain some truth. That is what makes this so complicated.

People really can behave badly.

But a legitimate criticism can also become a very convenient place for our own discomfort to hide.

And this is where adolescence gets interesting

Teenage girls are navigating enormous questions about identity, belonging, attractiveness, sexuality, popularity and worth.

They are watching one another very closely, particularly online, where so much of what is unrealistic is neatly funnelled through algorithms designed to target each girl’s insecurities.

Who is desirable?

Who is popular?

Who is confident?

Who gets invited?

Who gets attention from boys?

Who is allowed to be sexual — and who gets judged for it?

Who is “too much”?

Who is “not enough”?

Who is cool?

Who is embarrassing?

Who is safe to be friends with?

And who threatens the position of somebody else?

There is an extraordinary amount of social learning happening during these years.

So when a girl does something that disrupts the hierarchy, the response from other girls can sometimes be intense.

And this is where I think we need to be careful about the language of girl code.

Because girls absolutely deserve to learn about loyalty, consent, boundaries, honesty and consideration for one another.

But they also deserve to learn that another girl's existence is not a betrayal of them and that it's only by making mistakes that we can grow. The standards girls hold each other up to are impossibly high.

The uncomfortable part: patriarchy doesn't only operate through men

There is an irony here.

We can talk about patriarchy as something imposed upon women and girls — and it absolutely is.

But patriarchal ideas can also become internalised.

Girls learn, often very early, what makes a girl “acceptable”.

Be pleasant.

Don't be too loud.

Don't be too sexual.

Don't make other people uncomfortable.

Don't show off.

Don't think you're better than everyone else.

Don't want too much.

Don't make other girls feel insecure.

Don't get above yourself.

Don't take more than your share of attention.

And perhaps most importantly:

Don't make yourself so big that somebody else feels small.

Then, sometimes, girls become the enforcers of those rules themselves.

Not because girls are inherently cruel.

Quite the opposite.

Because they are learning to survive within a social system that has historically placed enormous value on them gaining approval, fitting-in and being acceptable.

This is why I don't think the answer is to tell girls to stop caring about one another.

I think the answer is to give them a more sophisticated understanding of what caring looks like.

Sometimes caring means challenging a friend.

Sometimes it means saying, “That wasn't okay.”

Sometimes it means taking responsibility for having hurt someone.

But sometimes caring also means asking ourselves:

Am I holding this girl accountable, or am I trying to make her smaller?

Am I protecting someone, or am I punishing someone?

Am I responding to genuine harm, or to something she has stirred up in me?

Would I feel differently if I wasn't jealous, threatened or insecure?

And perhaps the hardest question:

Am I asking her to behave differently because she has genuinely done something wrong — or because her freedom and light makes me uncomfortable?

I want something different for girls

I don't want girls to grow up believing that being a good woman means making themselves less threatening.

I don't want them to learn that their friendships depend upon staying within an invisible hierarchy.

I don't want them to believe that another girl's success is their failure.

And I don't want them to confuse jealousy with moral certainty.

But equally, I don't want us to swing so far in the other direction that we stop talking about responsibility.

Girls can hurt each other.

Girls can behave badly.

Girls can be jealous, competitive, unkind and exclusionary.

So can boys.

So can adults.

The work, I think, is in becoming able to hold both truths.

We can hold girls accountable without shaming them.

We can acknowledge harm without creating a social hierarchy of who deserves punishment.

We can teach boundaries without teaching girls to police one another.

And we can teach girls that taking up space is not, in itself, an act of aggression.

Perhaps one of the greatest gifts we can give adolescent girls is the ability to ask themselves:

Is this about what she has actually done?

Or is something about her making me uncomfortable?

Because there is a huge difference between saying:

“You hurt me.”

and saying:

“You need to become smaller so that I feel better.”

I think learning to tell the difference is part of growing up. To recognise when we are protecting a value, and when we are protecting our own position within the group.

Perhaps part of becoming women is learning that we don't need other women to be smaller, quieter or less visible in order to feel okay about ourselves. And when we do notice ourselves doing it (as I expect we are all capable of), perhaps it can be a moment for compassionate self-enquiry and curiosity — to ask what is happening underneath the behaviour of trying to make someone else smaller.

Envy and jealousy are natural and normal emotions. They only become destructive when they are suppressed or acted out. Girls deserve to be taught that it's okay to feel these things, and supported to see other girls' successes as motivation and permission to reach for the stars.

Let's face it — it's not likely to be men who give us permission to go for it. The more audacious and celebrated women are, in all our unique and different ways, the better. Let's cheer lead that in each other.

That's real girl code.

I will be offering therapy to adolescents as of April 2027. For all other therapy enquiries contact me sarahdrewer@me.com