Illustration by Christy Karacas
It’s fun to be a girl. We get to giggle and cry and throw hissy fits and keep diaries and bleed out of our vaginas and care about stuff and we don’t have to feel like a fag about it. We even get to vote, hooray! Sometimes we forget to, though. Sorry, Susan B. Anthony!
Now before you go calling us dumb sluts (we know you love to do that), you should know that we also understand the problems with making essentialist assumptions about gender. We know that biology doesn’t dictate who we are (society does!). We went to liberal arts colleges, thanks. So if you’re a girl and you love fixing cars and playing football, that’s aces. We can do whatever we wanna do, right ladies? And right now we wanna give you an A-to-Z list of some of the things we love (and hate) about being a girl. Girl Power! (Just kidding.)
ASSHOLES
Guys think we’re attracted to assholes because that’s their only defence for when we dump them. When girls are rejected we turn it inward and blame ourselves for not being prettier. That’s our bad, we know. But when dudes are rejected they makes grand statements like, “Women love guys that are assholes, they don’t care about us nice guys!” And then that grand statement spreads like the wave at a Yankees game and next thing you know it’s written in fucking stone because dudes are able to write stuff in stone! Yes, they have that much power.
We don’t want you to push our heads down to your crotch area when you want a blowjob, but we also don’t want you to cry and write shitty emo poetry and paint our portrait in pastels. It’s just that there’s only a teeny wading pool in between the lake of total assholes and the bay of fucking pussies, so sometimes when we’re horny we’ll take what we can get. Ultimately we all want the same things: Good sex ’n’ giggles. So learn how to eat pussy and start memorising lines from Will Ferrell comedies like your sex life depends on it. Because it does.
Honourable mentions: Apple (the one that Eve ate), Andie from Pretty in Pink, Ally Sheedy
LAHNIK, MANOLO
What’s the big whoop with these things? We’ve never been able to justify spending half our rent on a pair of shoes so we have no idea and guess what? We don’t care. Have you ever seen a foot come out of a high heel after several hours of wear? Not a pretty sight, no matter how expensive the shoe. It’s like you crammed five sweaty, naked, fat people into a phone booth. They are red, puffy and pissed off. Don’t get us wrong, we like heels. Dress-up is fun. But we also like not having bunions and toes that will eventually look like Teen Wolf’s fingers. So save the heels for museum galas and dancing naked for your boyfriend and rethink the penny loafer. They’re sexier than you think!
Honourable mentions: Babies, birth-control pills, brides, biological determinism, Betty & Veronica, baking, Bring It On
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C is for Chick Lit
EMINISM
We get so mad when some nitwit says she’s not a feminist. I guess if you’re cool with being raped all the time and having no options in life other than being a baby machine or a prostitute, then yeah, you’re probably not a feminist. But if you enjoy birth-control pills and not being beaten up by your owner – I mean, husband – then you pretty much are one so you may as well stop shaving your legs right now. Just kidding. Somewhere along the way feminism got a bad rep, but it doesn’t mean you have to be a sourpuss or that you can’t write tongue-in-cheek articles riddled with silly gender stereotypes. All it means is that you don’t hate yourself.
Honourable mentions: Feelings, face cream, flirting, Foxes
-SPOT
Ooh, the G-spot. How do I find the G-spot? Where can I buy 500 books about finding the G-spot? Listen, for the millionth time: If you put your fingers in a lady’s vagina and tap up in a “come here” motion right behind the area that feels kinda spongy, that’s it. It usually feels pretty awesome for the lady and she might even cum on your face if you’re lucky. The end.
Honourable mentions: Ghost World, Grey Gardens, Golden Girls, getting fingered, Grandma Moses, gossiping
H is for Hitachi Magic Wand
I is for Ice Skating (especially the Kwanster)
Photo by AP
J is for Jenny Lewis
N is for Nice Tits
Photo by Yonathan Thiang
AULA BEGOUN, THE COSMETICS COP
We heart Paula because she calls bullshit on fancy makeup and skin-/ hair-care products. But she’s not anti-makeup – you can tell from her picture that she wears more than her share. She just calmly explains what the ingredients in the products actually mean (plant extracts are bullshit – thanks, Clarins), alerts you to the insane amount of irritants contained in most skin creams (screw you, Origins) and then rates the best and worst ones for you. And it’s all online for free.
PS: You know that Crème de la Mer stuff that is supposedly the best moisturiser ever and costs $160 for a teaspoonful? Well, according to Paula, it is “almost exclusively water, thickening agents, and some algae”. Suckers!
Honourable mentions: Pink, pink, PMS, Patti Smith, Poly Styrene, Pammy and Nicky from Times Square, people-pleasing, processing, Punky Brewster
UIZZES ON MYSPACE
Girls only do those stupid MySpace quizzes to send secret, subliminal messages to boys they have crushes on. Now you know.
Honourable mentions: Queen Latifah, quilting (we do that, right?), Queen Elizabeth, questioning everything!
OM-COMS
Oddly enough, we know more boys who are into these movies than girls. Just ask our editor. Rom-coms are pretty good for a Sunday afternoon. Flip on 11-Alive (that’s what channel 11 was called in the 80s) and fold your laundry to You’ve Got Mail, Serendipity, Just Like Heaven and The Truth About Cats and Dogs. It’s actually one of the only guilty pleasures we can honestly say we feel a little guilty about. It seems like these movies were made specifically for us single women to feel hopeful about finding our soulmate and it’s OK because all nice guys and chubby girls finish last and don’t worry, you will too, and damn you Hollywood bigwigs for making us fall into your devilish trap!
Honourable mentions: Rainbows, Regina Spektor, the Runaways, Rizzo, Ramona Quimby, Rollerderby magazine
S is for Sassy
Photo by Getty
T is for Thongs
IAGRA
Who wants to be pounded for five hours? What modern woman has the time? Hey, ever wonder what would happen if a girl took Viagra? We know a lesbian who took some with her girlfriend and here’s what she said: “It was the worst sex we ever had. Clits are sort of like little penises, so they got all swollen and hard and it took FOREVER for us to come. But I guess technically that’s what Viagra’s supposed to do so I don’t know what we were expecting.” Fascinating!
Honourable mentions: Viola Swamp (the mean teacher from Miss Nelson is Missing!), vaginas (doye), Valerie, V.C. Andrews
AXING
Waxing hurts. It hurts a lot. God forbid you should choke on a pubic hair while you’re eating us out. Thank you, Larry David. What’s with girls waxing everything though? We can understand a bikini wax, and even a betweeny wax (only Jewish and Italian girls need apply), but getting a Brazilian and having absolutely no hair down there is a little weird. Looking like a five-year-old when you get naked is just gross. If men like it, if they’re the ones that specifically request it, you might want to take into consideration that they’re paedophiles. Sorry, but it’s true. We understand that not everyone wants to embrace their inner Andrea Dworkin, and we agree that personal grooming is important. But it doesn’t mean you have to look like a porn star. No one looks like that. Sex is supposed to be awkward and weird and dirty, with stray hairs and stinky pits. Those are the things that sometimes make it the sexiest.
Honourable mentions: Witchcraft, women’s studies, Wendy Williams, Wendy O. Williams, Wanda Sykes, wanting more than he’s willing to give, Weetzie Bat
V is for Viagra
-PENSIVE PURSES
Are we the only ones who find the popularity of $10,000 handbags with WASPy names like “The Clive” or “The Eliza” disturbing? Seriously, it’s a place to put your tampons. I mean, true, girls love a cute purse. It’s because a purse is a metaphor for a vagina – it’s small and velvety and pretty and you want to put things in it again and again and again. Still, our criteria for a good bag are: a) lots of zippered pockets, and b) big enough to fit all our crap inside because, like Alison in The Breakfast Club says, “You never know when you may have to jam.” If it happens to have a cute heart pattern on it and lots of shiny things hanging off it, then yay, bonus. But really, like they always say, it’s what’s inside that counts – carry useful things in your purse and lend them freely. People will be impressed by your generosity and resourcefulness! Much more so than they would be by a price tag, anyway.
Honourable mentions: Xanadu, Xena: Warrior Princess (we miss that show every day)
OU
You are a girl! You are a gift, a rainbow, a ray of sunlight and a fresh summer breeze. You give life and eat forbidden apples with pride and determination. You are beautiful and don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. As a girl there are a few simple commandments. One of them is that jealousy kills girl-love, so the next time you and a bunch of your girlfriends gang up against another girl and make her cry because she hooked up with your ex, just remember that it’s really not cool to do that! You don’t even care about Kevin anyway, YOU dumped HIM! Another thing to remember is, “Beer before liquor, never been sicker. Liquor before beer, you’re in the clear.” Sitting on the sidewalk while Mandy holds your hair back while you puke is not a good look!
In all seriousness though, you are a girl so you should be siked. Give your man a great idea and don’t be surprised when he turns to his friends and says, “Hey man, why don’t you listen to my great idea?” Since you’re a girl you won’t mind because that’s how we roll. Do you think Yoko cared when she told John Lennon about peace and he acted like he invented the damn thing? No, she didn’t. You’re smart. You don’t need to prove yourself to anyone. You know the truth, so stop acting like you don’t already. It’s giving the rest of us a bad rep.
Honourable mentions: Yoko Ono, yeast infections, yogurt
ODIAC
“Oh my gosh, you are SUCH a Libra!” Sandra said after she showed me where the frozen-yoghurt machine was in the caff. It was my first day working for Mr. Spencer, the top dog at the law firm were I had landed my first real secretarial job. Oops, I mean “executive assistant”. Gosh, I’m so forgetful, I guess I truly am a Libra after all! Sandra was so sweet. After she offered me a Diet Coke she told me where I could hide my Reeboks. “Mr. Spencer makes sure all his girls wear pumps but I know it’s only natch to wear ’boks, just don’t let him see you.” Thank gosh Sandra was a Gemini. We were compatible as lifelong friends. I just knew I was going to make it in Big Apple city!
Honourable mentions: Zines, zero (the number of girls who think Fletch is funny)
Are you an uncouth numbskull who doesn’t know how to behave in polite society? Have some more VICE Guides:
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