The Truth Behind The “Girl’s Girl”

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at St. Andrews chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.

In 2025, it seems being a “girl’s girl” is the ultimate green flag. For those unfamiliar, a “girl’s girl” supports her friends through hardships, celebrates their successes, and stands up for all the girls regardless of any personal tensions. On paper, she sounds great. However, the term has begun to take a sinister turn. Your average “girl’s girl” is now enemies with the infamous “pick-me girl” and is — what I like to call — a misandrist without a cause. She will blame everything on men, but this process ends up just taking down other women. She is loyal based on strengthening womankind, rather than on real friendships built with trust, effort, and time.

This summer, I tuned into Love Island UK for the first time and, much to my own dismay, became enthralled. Though focused on romance, the female friendships and rivalries struck a much more personal chord. The public loved Shakira and Toni for their ‘iconic behavior’: a misconstruction of their conniving and spiteful acts (sabotaging coupling-ups, talking trash behind everyone’s backs, and forming a social divide between the girls). They were praised for being ‘real’, but they were just rude and used the “independent girl boss” narrative to justify their dislike for girls like Meg and Helena.

Meg is a contestant who stayed coupled up with one man, Dejon, the whole season. Shakira and Toni constantly made jabs at both members of the couple — calling Meg “a mug”, implying that she was embarrassing herself for being with a man like Dejon. Likely, Shakira and Toni were just envious of the fact that, despite his many escapades in Casa Amor and whatnot, Dejon always came back to Meg. Shakira and Toni do not want Dejon to change; they just want to point out to Meg that they would never act as dumb as she has if they were in her situation. On the other hand, Toni’s love interest, Harrison, attempted to juggle her and Lauren at the same time. Similarly, Shakira’s love interest, Harry, could never make up his mind between her and Helena. The duo relentlessly teased and scorned Helena for stealing Harry from Shakira, but were likely more bothered by how easygoing she always was about Harry’s Playboy attitude. Instead of admitting to their jealousy, they attacked Dejon and Harry under the guise of ‘protecting’ Meg and Helena. 

This is not “girls supporting girls”. It’s misogyny warped into a ‘feminist’ mindset. This culture is rampant nowadays, whether it be in Instagram comment sections or girls’ nightclub bathrooms. It may stem from a desire to appear stable, which is best achieved by denying the truth that we all want to fall in love. Those labeled as ‘pick-me girls’ are punished for trying to prove to their boyfriends that they are ‘not like other girls’. Yet, ‘girl’s girls’ are trying to prove the same thing — that they are ‘not like other girls’ — because ‘other girls’ are all trying to impress men and becoming backstabbers in the process. Meanwhile, using these labels against each other just contributes to the narrative that women are crazy and conniving; not to mention, this is a notion the patriarchy has placed on us. The endless impossible standards placed on us to be desirable to men cause many to identify themselves as ‘different’, and in doing so, we inadvertently give all the power to the man. It is just as backward to assume all men are evil as it is to treat them as the be-all-end-all. 

[Me, choosing my words carefully while writing this article…]

I can already hear it — some readers are going to call me a “pick-me girl”. Maybe I am being unfair to Shakira and Toni. But I have been in Toni’s position. I know how humiliating it is to be dragged on by an indecisive man like Harrison, and understand why she put up a front. That said, I have never insulted and berated my crush left and right, then expected him to grant me respect without returning the sentiment. Men are still people — they deserve respect from their love interests, too.

The pressure to be a “girl’s girl” is toxic and lacks nuance, much like most micro-labels Gen-Z uses to define personality. There is literally no reason to support a woman who constantly speaks poorly of your boyfriend, or feel bad that you are happy with a man. Being in love does not make you less of a feminist, and you are not a “pick-me girl” just because you got chosen. Instead of measuring yourself upon the “girl’s girl” vs “pick me” metric, just try to be a good person. That is more than enough.