On Good Girls

As I have reflected on Bell and Golombisky’s (2004) article from last week, I’ve tried to remember times when I have played the Good Girl. I know I most certainly played the role of the Good Girl in high school and this likely persisted even into my early college years, but in trying to remember what that experience was like, it seems like ages ago since I’ve have enacted the Good Girl performance. After all, it did not take me long in the Communication Studies Department at LSU to give up the Good Girl. However, in the time spent with my family over Thanksgiving, I’ve been (somewhat painfully) reminded of how close the Good Girl still is to me. Basically, Good Girls run rampant in my family.

Bell and Golombisky (2004) describe the Good Girl as “the women in our classes who work hard to be perfect” (p. 296). A prime example is my twin sister Camille. Camille works exceptionally hard in school, partially because of the pleasure it brings her but also because she views making good grades as evidence to others that she is intelligent. You see, Camille, despite knowing how smart she is, is convinced that others do not pick up on this upon meeting her. My sister’s suspicions that others (particularly males) do not view her as intelligent and perhaps the actual perception on the part of those others that she is not intelligent is undoubtedly tied to the message our culture sends all young girls: femininity does not equal intelligence. I recognized this as problematic and talked it through with my sister long before knowing to call it Good Girl behavior. She has for the most part been receptive to the insights I have tried to share with her about gender stereotypes and male privilege. Camille’s positive reception of these conversations gave me hope that we could continue having such conversations. To my dismay, this Thanksgiving break, I learned just how deeply the women in my family have internalized the Good Girl.

There are, according to these Bell and Golombisky (2004), three different enactments of the Good Girl. They are 1) self-imposed silences, 2) learned helplessness, and 3) nurturing urges to serve and protect. Of the three, the women in my family perform the Good Girl who seeks to serve and protect men.

Here are some examples of the Good Girl from over the break:

When trying to discuss how hegemonic masculinity contributes to gun violence, my sister replied, “If we keep demonizing men, they’re going to end up living up to those standards.”

When discussing Baylor University’s recent mishandling of the sexual assault of a student-athlete by another student-athlete, my aunt said, “But if he’s wrongly accused, that’s catastrophic for his life.”

More broadly, my mother continuously upholds the authority of my brother and father’s bigoted voices while my queer voice is perpetually silenced.

Anything to avoid hurting the feelings of the men in my family. (This is ironic given that hegemonic masculinity would have us believe that men don’t have feelings.)

Perhaps it is only after reading Bell and Golombisky’s (2004) article that I am starting to notice how frequently the Good Girl rears its ugly (pretty?) head. Whatever the case, I couldn’t escape the Good Girl this past week at home and was repeatedly silenced by other women in my family for the sake of serving and protecting the egos of men. Reluctantly, I realize that I was that Good Girl once, and that I didn’t drop the Good Girl performance until I was in college. So, I am committing myself to actively making attempts to engage the Good Girls in my classroom through the many techniques offered by Bell and Golombisky (2004), such as Think/Pair/Share, Write an Example, Make a List, Think of Everything You Know About, and the penny activity we did in class. I hope the rest of you who are instructors will take time to consider how you can incorporate these activities into your lesson plans, and if you are doing so already, evaluate how these practices have worked to engage the Good Girls in your classes.

My apologies if this sounds a lot like venting. Thanksgiving was rough. Gobble gobble.