Miu Yatsuka

During a conversation with a classmate my junior year of high school, I offhandedly mentioned how a new female student I met was “surprisingly smart.” After I said that, she gave me a confused look. “Why would that be surprising?” she asked. I reluctantly admitted my reasoning: “Because she wears a full face of makeup and dresses pretty girly.” She went quiet and said, “Bella … that’s really sexist.”

That was a punch to the gut, because I knew she was right.

I’ve never had an issue standing up to the patriarchy when it directly impacted me in school. I’m required to wear pantyhose and heels to “make my legs look good?” I’m wearing a pantsuit and not asking for your permission. You want to interrupt me in class? I won’t hesitate to call you out.

But that’s not feminism. Yes, I was standing up to sexist actions, but that didn’t mean I was fighting for all women. Instead of trying to set a new norm for equality, I was trying to show that I was an exception to the norm of inequality. I felt like I was successful in school despite the fact that I was female because most girls were “unintelligent” and “unmotivated.”

I was a classic case of internalized misogyny during my early teen years. I remember seeing posts online making fun of girls who said things like “I’m not like other girls! I’m quirky!” and becoming frustrated: It might not be true that the other girls were different, but it was true for me. I was actually not like other girls.

It’s pandering to men and masculinity—looking for “approval” from traditionally masculine values. For some girls, it’s desperately hanging out solely with boys and mocking other women and femininity for male attention (pick-me girls). For others, it’s competing with and belittling women in professional and academic settings, places where femininity is incorrectly associated with low competence.

What’s so insidious about internalized misogyny is that it disguises itself as a more individual form of feminism when, in reality, it’s women playing into sexist stereotypes. Just who are these other girls anyway but a false amalgamation of stereotypical female traits? By trying to defy our gender, we reinforce that such women—unintelligent, obsessed with looks, overly emotional and dramatic—exist. We rise above the patriarchy by reinforcing it for other women.

The end result for widespread feminism is that women often fail to empower each other because we’re stuck competing with and belittling each other.

For young girls in school, it’s incredibly lonely. They’re dealing with enough already—mounting external pressure on academic achievement and success. Not to mention how social media can spread toxic stereotypes like “pick-me girls” faster than ever before (to an unstudied extent). It’s isolating. And invisible, to the point where we have to reflect, realize there’s a problem and actively seek out the resources to find a solution. Mine was Professor Emily Mitamura’s Women of Color Feminism class.

It’s a solution so simple: embracing and standing beside women who are different from us. But that’s a hard lesson to learn as a middle schooler. And now I can look back and say:

I was misogynistic when I quietly resented the girls who wore skirts and heels to tournaments.

I was misogynistic when I assumed how much makeup someone was wearing defined their intelligence.

I’ll probably be misogynistic a thousand times more as I continue to unlearn what my schooling has taught me. And that’s okay.

I’m not the first woman to realize what I’ve been internalizing, and I know I won’t be the last.

Bella Gulati is a member of the Class of 2029.