Girlhood is not Gentle But It Taught Me How to Begin Again

From the outside, girlhood looks like a soft season.
All pastels and ponytails.
Laughter that loops across hallways.
A collection of bracelets, diaries with little locks, and the shimmer of pink lip gloss.

It looks innocent. Effortless, even.

But if you’ve been a girl—
if you’ve carried girlhood inside your body, you know the truth:

Girlhood isn’t gentle
It’s beautiful, yes.
But it’s also brutal.
Not because we made it that way—
But because the world did.

The Quiet Performances No One Sees

What most people don’t realize is how early we learn to perform.
Not for fun, but for safety.

We’re taught to smile so others feel comfortable.
To speak softly so we don’t sound “aggressive.”
To laugh at jokes that make us uncomfortable, because being polite feels safer than saying no.

Our walk is rehearsed.
Our outfits are second-guessed.
Our tone is adjusted a hundred times in our heads before it ever makes it to our lips.

Even joy becomes calculated.
Even freedom feels rehearsed.

And somewhere in between trying to be “nice” and trying to stay safe,
we lose a little bit of ourselves.

Shrinking to Survive

I look back now and realize:
So much of what I called “femininity” growing up
was actually a survival strategy.

Being good.
Being soft.
Being small.

Because that’s what felt safest.

You shrink your voice so you don’t offend.
You shrink your dreams so you don’t intimidate.
You shrink your presence so you don’t get noticed for the wrong reasons.

And the shrinking becomes so normal,
you forget you were ever allowed to be big.

We’re Taught to Be Good Before We’re Taught to Be Whole

Girlhood, for so many of us, isn’t just growing up.
It’s growing into a set of rules.
Unspoken, but deeply felt.

Be good.
Be sweet.
Be appropriate.
Be beautiful—but not too beautiful.
Speak—but not too loudly.
Want—but not too much.

And so we learn to survive by becoming palatable.
We become skilled at emotional shape-shifting.
We smile even when we’re hurting.
We apologize when we haven’t done anything wrong.

All because somewhere along the way, we were told:
Being “good” is more important than being real.

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Most girls are not raised to be women.
They are raised to be manageable.
— Nayyirah Waheed

What Is Femininity Without the Fear?

This is the question that keeps coming back to me as I get older.

What if our idea of femininity—
the softness, the smiles, the grace—
isn’t inherently us?

What if it’s just what we learned to wear
to protect ourselves?

And more importantly,
what happens when we begin to unlearn it?

What does femininity look like without the fear?
What does it feel like when it’s not shaped by shame or survival?

Can softness be a choice—not a default?
Can being kind coexist with having boundaries?
Can we be expressive without performing?
Can we take up space and still be safe?

I don’t have all the answers.
But I do know this:

There is a difference between shrinking and softening.

One is about fear.
The other is about intention.

A New Kind of Womanhood

I want to grow into a woman who chooses softness—not out of fear, but out of clarity.
A woman who doesn’t perform her emotions but actually feels them.
Who isn’t trying to be palatable, but present.
Who doesn’t shrink to be safe, but expands to be true.

I think so many of us are craving that now.
A version of femininity that feels less like a mask
and more like a home.

One where we are allowed to be both tender and powerful.
Still and loud.
Beautiful, not in the way we look,
but in the way we belong to ourselves.

To the Girls Reading This

If you’re reading this and you’ve ever felt like you were too much—
or not enough—
I want you to know:

You’re not alone.
So many of us have moved through girlhood like a tightrope—
balancing expectations with longing,
safety with self-expression.

It’s not your fault.
You didn’t make the rules.
But you do get to rewrite them now.

You get to ask different questions.
You get to take up space.
You get to say, “I don’t want to perform anymore. I want to live.”

You’re allowed to be complex.
You’re allowed to be loud.
You’re allowed to be free.

And maybe, just maybe—
you don’t have to earn that freedom.
You just have to remember that you were never meant to live inside a box in the first place.

A Final Thought

Girlhood wasn’t gentle.
But it taught me how to listen.
How to read between the lines.
How to hold the unspoken.
And now, as I grow into womanhood,
I carry those lessons like quiet fire.

I’m still soft.
But no longer small.
I’m still kind.
But no longer silent.

And I hope you know—
you can be, too.