oh, woman, tell me what you want

I'm not going to try and disguise this post as anything other than what it really is - an excuse to talk about stereotypically girly things and embrace them.

I don't know why this is, but for me, the best part of being a girl has always been the ridiculous little eccentricities we all have. I don't mean the nervous tick in your laugh or the way your nose twitches - not the little things that some of us love to hear from boys and somehow construe into a confession of their passionate feelings. I mean the way that some of us will only use blue 0.5mm pens and yellow highlighters, or the way that some of us can't leave the house without lip gloss. There's something endearing to me about our particular patterns of consumerism.

Our preference between lip stick shades and hand cream scents that the majority of heterosexual males can't even tease apart is something I love to flaunt. Girls always feel the need to defend themselves against the stereotype that we're all shopaholics and that we inhale cosmetics. And not every girl is subject to the stereotype, but even if we are, why should that be a problem? Why are we prosecuted for our consumerism or our love of everything pink? Victoria's Secret, Sephora, UGG, whatever brand is trending right now among the female population is not any more corrupt, evil or misleading than any of the male directed companies such as Nintendo or Nike. So why is it that we are faulted for our peculiarities and members of our own gender  feel the need to shed their association to those of us who are proud members of the female-targeted supply and demand chain?

There's something comforting about walking into your room and having it smell exactly like your favourite perfume or candle. It's the same kind of comfort that comes from stocking up on your preferred shampoo and conditioner when it goes on sale. I don't know why the male population doesn't similarly find joys in these seemingly mundane things, but I'm proud of the fact that I do. There's definitely something to be said about the simple pleasures in life, and I think girls have this down to a T. The smallest packages of seemingly meaningless things bring us such joy sometimes and that's something I never want to let go of or deny.

If smelling like daisies and applying a coat of lip gloss every hour makes me a mindless consumerist driven automaton in your eyes, then so be it. But just a head up for you: my mascara isn't stopping me from acing all my exams. My hand cream doesn't prevent me from graduating top of my class. My perfume isn't going to change the way my grades are presented in a transcript. And my lip stick isn't going to stop me from being your boss one day.