Girl Code…
Carly Aquilino from MTV’s Girl Code is coming to Portland on the December 7th. Her show provides an unabashed look at issues young women face. After watching a few of them, it seems that “Girl Decoded” would be a more appropriate name since the show consists of women attempting to explain the “rules of the road” to a young female audience. The whole idea behind “Girl Code” is that there are rules that just “are” without having to be stated.
We at Project Bluebird wondered whether the concept of an unsaid set of rules, helps women or hurts them. Is girl code just promoting cattiness and keeping girls who are less bound by social stigma in check? Let’s take this classic example:
Pam dates Brad.
Brad dumps Pam.
Pam is friends with Kim.
Girl Code: Kim can’t date Brad. At least not for what…a year? Two? Never???
In Escapist Magazine’s poll about this very topic, opinions were split between “never”, and “only once your friend is comfortable with it”. That makes sense right? It makes sense until you add a degree of separation. Once other friends hear that Kim is now dating Brad, it doesn’t matter whether her and Pam are on good terms, the girl code has been broken. This infringement is now destined to spread until Kim is labeled a “backstabber” by girls who barely know her. It won’t always happen this way, but it often does.
Our social system is so complex and so open, thanks to social media, that sticking to some unsaid rule about how to treat your friends or how to deal with delicate relationships, is a recipe for social disaster. How many times do our good deeds get completely twisted by even those we care about? So in our new social landscape, where rumors spread like smallpox, is it perhaps just better to throw out these unspoken social laws for simple understanding and the expectation of good will towards each other? Maybe that’s just the egg nog talking…