#i genuinely do like retail work for the most part! and why shouldn't that be an ok thing

[demonhimbo]

It bums me out that I can't make a livable wage doing my current job. I fucking love it. It's retail on a college campus. 90% of the time I'm just organizing and making everything look good and the other 10% is just chatting with the regulars who are goofy zoomers.

If they paid me at least $15 I'd be so happy. My heart just really does enjoy working with college students and faculty members

[askyourwritergrandma]

Hey Grandma! I need your opinion on the notorious "not like other girls" trope and readers projection of hate to every female character who is a little different and who doesn't follow the normal form of female standards. I literally see this all the time in reviews of books, you have a female character who is a little tomboyish, and the second she mentions she likes a "masculine thing" or a "quirky" thing, she is labeled not like other girls" when in reality its just her personality. Thoughts?

Well Anon, this is definitely a very good question. Unfortunately, most of it comes down to opinion, both my opinion and social opinion, which should always be taken with a grain of salt (as they say).

First off, creative critics exist solely to find a reason to be unhappy. I don't mean that you can't be critical of the media you consume or that stories shouldn't generate positive and/or negative responses. Absolutely stories exist (in part) to spark a reaction out of people and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. But professional critics who get paid to watch things and tell you whether or not they're worth your time are literally paid to generate a false caste system.

Good vs Bad is so subjective on so many fronts that it will always come down to personal preference. (I believe this about writing advice as well, you need to find someone that fits you and your style to really help you along your journey.) What works in mystery wouldn't work in romance. What works in children's action/adventure wouldn't work in horror. What works in middle grade fiction wouldn't work in adult and etc, etc, etc.

But we came to talk specifically about "Not Like Other Girls" and since it is primarily an opinion it will go under a cut:

My opinion breaks down to three parts:

Creative Critics have grown up with a male-centric entertainment industry with music/movies/books/TV/what have you. They are used to and expect that men are the default protagonists and anything that challenges that idea must be held back lest we lose our way of life. Maybe some of them are doing this intentionally or maybe some of them have simply never questioned why it is they feel this way. Intentionally or not, the best thing you can do with this form of blanket 'Rey is a Mary Sue' bullshit is to ignore it. (Because if Rey is a Mary Sue, then Luke is also a wish-fulfilling self-insert so we have nothing to talk about.)

The trope itself is kind of an insult to women. Whether you're the "quirky," "tomboy" or the "other girls" (i.e. the type that wear nice clothes, make up, whatever the comparison is here), you're saying that women have to fit into a narrow category or else they are "other". Truth is women in real life are just people and almost all of them have these various sides to them. The idea that women are make-up wearing, fashion-capable, nurturing gossipers is ridiculous. I've never worn make up in my life, my idea of fashion is an oversized hoodie and I only carried a purse when my kid was young enough to have a constant need of extra things. I am a nurturer who has worked primarily women-dominated jobs (caretaker/childcare/mom/child-based retail/etc) but I am also my family's handy man and I got a set of tools for Christmas last year. I'm not "not like other girls". I'm just a woman.

In storytelling, if you are the one creating the character who is "not like other girls" then what you need to use the trope effectively is to ditch the comparison to "other girls" and to have conviction in your character. That means that she isn't singled out or made to feel socially awkward by every other woman in the story because she is or is not some stereotype of a woman. Men do not prefer her (and especially do not say) because she is "not like other women". She is not more genuine. She is not more honest. Just because she likes sports and can change a tire does not mean that the woman standing next to her that prefers watching The Real Housewives of whoever the fuck and didn't even know her car needed oil is somehow less in any fashion.

This false comparison between women with different backgrounds/educations/skills/life experiences/expectations/goals/preferences/what have you is literally just another method of keeping women and women-driven stories from succeeding. It creates in-fighting and gives the critics an steady point from which to launch their on-going shitty takes from.

Your fashion-forward, motivated, definitely going to catch herself a prize husband woman can change a god damn tire, ok? Your quirky, blue-eyed pixie girl can 100% have been a cheerleader. Your football jersey-wearing tomboy can absolutely know how to bake a pie. The main problem is that this trope reduces women to individual traits and says this trait is feminine and this one is not.

So, just write a woman. Give her characteristics, do not compare her to other women based on nonsense gender roles. But if you do have her be unlike the women she's around (which is fair, fish outta water stories are great) do not make the women she's around less than her, just different.