Wanna be in My (Girl) Band?

As a kid I thought of myself as a Tom-Boy. Yet that wasn’t entirely accurate because I liked pink ALOT (still do) and other girlie things; like painting nails and ponies and making-up dance routines to Kylie Minogue.

Looking back, what resonated with me, is what being a ‘Tom Boy’ represented: it meant being brave and getting stuck in and lots of banter.

Thankfully as a grown-up I’ve realised that you can be a girl while liking all those things. Better still I have found a fearless bunch of ladies who like the girlie stuff too, but who are funny and brave and really ballsy with it.
Forget being a TomBoy. I’m ALL about being a Girl.

Girls are epic because:

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• We cry quite a bit.  How amazing is it to feel SO many emotions, that they physically spill out of your eyes?!

• Once upon a time we use to all pile in a toilet together on a night out, just to keep gossiping. I miss that.

• We can always be persuaded to have pudding. Forget up-selling – as a waitress at Pizza Express in my twenties I soon learnt if I left a dessert menu with a bunch of women, they’d almost certainly end up ‘sharing 3 puddings between 4.’

• Bitches don’t win. At school bitchy girls reign supreme, then, at some point everyone wises up and NICE, KIND & THOUGHTFUL wins out. 

• Girl Band Syndrome. When you and your buddies turn up in versions of the same outfit. Denim in various guises? 50 shades of leopard? Think All Saints ala ’99.

• We are hormonal. How dull to be level pegging. There’s something cleansing about losing your shit during PMT only to be ‘totally zen’ a few days later.

• We don’t bombard pregnant friends with the grim reality of parenting. We support them in their daydream. Then gather round them when the reality hits.

• We like to wrapping stuff nicely. Adding ribbons and washi tape simply to make the ‘opening experience’ more exciting for the recipient.

• We share each others joy. Receiving texts from a mate to say they’ve given birth makes me almost giddy with happiness. Like an adrenalin rush of positivity.

• We exchange  friendship jewellery. Not so much anymore. I’d really like to bring that back?

• “Girl Pretty”. Those women that you think are SO beautiful but your other half just doesn’t see? What’s that about? Female appreciation of beauty? Not sure. But I like it.

• The Chatter. Give me 48 hrs with my best mates and we will talk non-stop. Talk until the cows come home. We don’t need ‘sport’ to create conversation.

• Girls are funny.  Not just legends like Sharon Hogan, Amy Poheler  (incidentally here’s a review of her book I wrote for LadyLand) and Lena Dunham, some of my mates regularly make me worry about the strength of my pelvic floor.

• Girl Crushes. More likely Mum Crushes these days. They exist. They are like the platonic versions of holiday romances. The joy of them noticing you on IG. The thrill of bumping into them at the playground. But not for long; Mum crushes are short-lived… Before you know it you have moved on to the next one….

• We notice each other’s new hair/lipstick/necklace/notepad.

• In fact, once you pass ‘the dressing to get laid’ phase of your life, the only person you get dressed for is the other women in the room.

• We are powerful. We grow humans. It saddens me that women have ever or could ever be suppressed. Growing new life whilst going about ordinary life is surely the ultimate superpower?

• We figure shit out. No one teaches you how to put makeup on, how to plan a weekly food shop, how to look after a tiny weeny human when your husbands gone back to work and the visitors have died down – but some how we do it….