Cool Girl: Myth or Reality?

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Clarissa

July 19, 2012

I’m reading Gillian Flynn’s new novel Gone Girl (which, by the way, is a perfect beach read) and there is the following passage in it:

Being a Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth while somehow maintaining size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry ; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl.

Now, a question : do you think there are really women who do all this to get men? And if so then, why? Who needs such a man around? Is it that hard to make a living? I mean, OK, it’s hard, but maintaining this fake persona is an insanely difficult task. Unless the guy in question is a billionaire, I don’t see what return one gets on all this effort. Especially in the US, where there is such a shortage of women willing to put up with men on any sort of a serious basis, that a woman only needs to have a pulse to get suitors lining up.

Then again maybe I’m so relaxed here on the beach that I’ve started taking trashy beach reads too seriously. In all probability this Cool Girl is just the author’s invention. Right?

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31 responses to “Cool Girl: Myth or Reality?”

Fie Upon This Quiet Life

July 19, 2012

Whether the cool girl exists or not, people of both genders perpetuate the myth — much to the detriment of actual women. Why it’s perpetuated is much too complicated for me to say while I’m on a lunch break. 🙂

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Pen

July 19, 2012

It is the author’s invention, and it’s also a stereotype.

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1. Benoni
  
  July 19, 2012
  
  But to call it a “stereotype” insinuates it a cliche, meaning she must have got it from somewhere else – so not her invention after all? o:
  
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  1. Pen
    
    July 19, 2012
    
    Good catch. I forgot about that part of the definition of “stereotype.”
    
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Stringer Bell

July 19, 2012

Somewhat related: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ManicPixieDreamGirl

And I like how the same qualities exhibited by an unattractive girl suddenly become undesirable qualities.

Hot girl likes beer, belching, hot dogs, football = hot, carefree, awesome!
Unattractive girl like beer, belching, hot dogs, football = unclassy, whore, trying too hard, doesn’t take care of herself, etc. etc.

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reader

July 19, 2012

Here is a post about a RL Cool Girl – Professor Mary Beard, among the most famous living classicists, who isn’t afraid to be herself, voice her opinions and would never buy this rubbish:

http://procnetheswallow.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/one-very-clever-woman-fights-back/

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thevenerablecorvex

July 19, 2012

As far as I can tell, this is what the stereotypical American male would consider to be the ‘ideal woman.’ She does not exist, and I’m not sure if anyone in real life actually tries to be like her. Nor am I sure if she’s what *actual* American males consider to be ideal.

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Titfortat

July 19, 2012

Damn, my wife doesnt like video games! I guess she is just not as cool as she thinks. 😉

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anon

July 19, 2012

I’ve not seen *exactly* what the author is describing, but pretty close. I’ve heard them referred to as “honorary dudes”- women who are “just like one of the guys” or something. They pretend to like (or convince themselves that they like) all the stereotypical things frat boys like. However, they don’t do it to get men. They do it for status among that crowd; instead of being grouped with other “oversensitive girly girls” to be dismissed or only used for sex, they *almost* get to be treated as equals and with some amount of respect and power. Emphasis on the almost because if she isn’t hot, then that group of guys would never have anything to do with her. And if she ever speaks out about misogyny in the group, she would be dropped instantly.

I think many college-aged girls who aren’t stereotypically feminine, are steeped in a particularly misogynistic local culture, and have low self-esteem (leading to a desire to become popular) try to become “honorary dudes.” While I have never seen this sort of behavior in women for certain- I can only guess as to the motives of the women I am not well acquainted with- I have definitely seen shades of it. I am also probably at least partially guilty of doing similar sorts of things when I was a freshman in college (but you’re right, it is tiring, and I grew out of it when I could more firmly identify the stuff that was bothering me with that crowd).

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1. Elizabeth Switaj (@EKSwitaj)
  
  July 19, 2012
  
  I clicked over from Google Reader to say almost exactly this!
  
  I also want to add, though, that I think a lot of young women who act this way at university do so in part because they were bullied by other girls throughout their schooldays because they didn’t perform femininity appropriately.
  
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2. bloggerclarissa
  
  July 19, 2012
  
  Fascinating! Thanks for this great comment.
  
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Ol.

July 19, 2012

Seriously, you are taking this trash too seriously.

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Z

July 19, 2012

Why it is important to many to have a man around, any man: because it a stamp of validation. Odd, but true…

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  July 19, 2012
  
  I know! And it really bothers me that it should be so. I’d choose singlehood in a flash.
  
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musteryou

July 19, 2012

I had some weird experiences with some US guys, who must have thought I was playing this game of trying to put on a tough image in order to get in with them, or something. Much of the experiences occurred on the Internet. As I’ve always stated (because it always seems to bear repeating), I come from a different culture, so my attitudes are different and I’m never really sure what games I’m deemed to be playing.

But, presumably I was deemed to be playing a tough girl game, only to be playing it inconsistently, such that I let down my guard every now and then to reveal the “real me” — presumably the ultra-sensitive girl underneath that “cool girls” really are, despite the fact that they’re pretending not to be. (After all, it would be wrong for US types to let go of their gender essentialism in honour of the women who appear to be exceptions to a rule.)

It seems really, really hard to put it across to some US types, that all humans can experience the world positively and negatively. If I experience some things positively and say so, I am deemed to fall on the “cool girl” side of identity. If I acknowledge some negative things, then this is deemed to be “my mask slipping”. Thus gender essentialist ideas (that women are all really weak and only pretend to be cool) are reinforced, whilst the actual individual and her actual experiences are stripped of meaning in deference to some concept of categorical consistency (something quite different from characterological consistency and even inimical to it).

Such an insistence on reifying concepts of identity is why I think much of USA culture is insane.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  July 19, 2012
  
  Oh God, you keep coming up with this great terminology all the time! Reifying identity – that’s precisely what keeps happening. Whenever I step on this reifiied identity that has acquired an actual almost physical existence, people get very bothered.
  
  “What if we questioned your identity labels?” they keep asking with a reproach implied.
  
  Please do! I say. I want the identities to be questioned. I welcome it! But people do not believe I really mean it.
  
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  1. musteryou
    
    July 19, 2012
    
    Some people invest their egos in their reified identities and some don’t. My whole concept of Western culture, for a long time, was that it consisted of investing your ego into a reified identity concept. I tried to do this, with all my might, because I intended to adapt to Western culture. Otherwise, people kept accusing me of inconsistency for being naturally myself, according to prior cultural conditioning. Now, finally, I’ve given up. I can’t do it. I have to be consistent with my own views, but inconsistent from the point of view of those who believe people automatically fit into categories.
    
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serenebabe

July 19, 2012

If you want to see women trying to be like this, check out tumblr. The 20-somethings I encountered when I was using tumblr see this “Cool Girl” as the ideal (or, rather, they seem to think men think it is so they (of course??!) are trying to be that way). It horrified me in a car-wreck-fascination kind of way. Very sad for everyone involved.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  July 19, 2012
  
  I have a feeling that tumblr is this weird space where people unleash all kinds of strange aspects of themselves. I always get the freakiest commenters from there.
  
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  1. serenebabe
    
    July 20, 2012
    
    My experience of it was that it’s a lot like the worst parts of high school. It certainly brought out the worst in me, and I saw the most depressing absence of self-respect among the women… If I was a “sigh” kind of person, I’d sigh.
    
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musteryou

July 19, 2012

Here’s more on the fetishisation of identity as an unassailable categorical construct. Personally, I have no qualms whatsoever about appropriating anyone’s culture. I don’t think it is “wrong”. What kind of metaphysical argument would make it wrong? http://www.modernprimate.com/what-the-hell-is-transethnicity/

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1. Z
  
  July 19, 2012
  
  Although there are some legitimate criticisms of transferring cultural capital upward, while the actual producers of said culture are marginalized/left in poverty and so on.
  
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  1. musteryou
    
    July 19, 2012
    
    Yeah, and I agree that there is something awry when that happens. At the same time, extending the logic of private ownership to cultures that do not necessarily think in those terms is a form of corrupting them. So the do-gooders corrupt whilst enforcing their morality, and probably do so more effectively than the “appropriaters” because they have a veneer of doing good.
    
    My husband’s adopted daughter is Gautemalan, but she grew up in Texas and identifies with Korean culture. Many of her friends are Korean. She likes the Korean food and pop culture.
    
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Z

July 19, 2012

From conversation in class today — American women in class say American women are “masochistic” in that they prefer men who treat them poorly over men who treat them well (the counterexample cited was romantic Latins who are good dates). Why do they prefer men who treat them poorly? I asked.

Answer: because American women believe, erroneously, that they can be independent. So they choose men who allow them this, and thus end up with men who are not demonstrative, and who want them to be honorary dudes, etc.

If American women would give up this ideal of independence, they said, they would be able to get men who treated them better.

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1. musteryou
  
  July 19, 2012
  
  It’s another appeal to the idea of an invisible, essential identity. It is thought that women are, by nature, dependent. Therefore, if they act independently — which is to say, “as they are not” — they must necessarily be acting masochistically. It’s interesting how the very function of ideology, as such, is to get things back to front. There are a very few people who seem to realize that ideology functions by reversing cause and effect and making things seem the opposite of what they are. Most people don’t see how this works, and thus you have such abominations at the Men’s Movement, whereby “loving” men try to correct ostensible female masochism, by demanding a return to Kinder, Küche, Kirche.
  
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  1. Z
    
    July 19, 2012
    
    Back to front, yes.
    
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  2. bloggerclarissa
    
    July 19, 2012
    
    I’ve looked at Amazon’s bestseller list and it’s inundated with masochistic erotica. Obviously writers try to surf the wave of 50 shades of grey. My theory is that people want sexual fulfillment but feel so guilty about this that they symbolically punish themselves for it by imagining sex in these masochistic circumstances.
    
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    1. musteryou
      
      July 19, 2012
      
      I think that is a large part of what the Marquis de Sade is on about, too.
      
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2. bloggerclarissa
  
  July 19, 2012
  
  Sweet Jesus on the cross.
  
  Still, this gave me an idea for a future post.
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    July 19, 2012
    
    The only recipe for personal happiness, I’m convinced, is complete independence. I love N passionately but the moment I start feeling disrespected, unfulfilled, uncomfortable, I will be out. And he knows it and recognizes that it’s the right position for me to take. The only point of a relationship is to make me happy.
    
    Of course, without financial independence a woman is screwed. I was financially dependent for 2 months once and never again.
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      July 19, 2012
      
      And depending on a man to give your life meaning is a losing strategy as well.
      
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