Female teenagers

[IAmInsignificunt]

When I was a female teenager I wasn’t the coquettish, scantily clad mini spice girl that the TRAs like to typify teen girls to be.
Can we have a thread that talks about our teen years as actual adolescents going through the realities of female puberty in our society? The reality of it is far different to how it is currently being presented.

• I wanted to study a science at university. Because I was a girl my parents, friends and teachers tried to them talk me out of it. I was pointed towards drama and English literature. Thankfully one lone teacher pushed me and allow me to live out my dream whilst everyone else was against it.

• I had terrible acne and spent years hidden under a veil of hair and with my face pointed toward the ground. My mum wouldn’t allow me to take the pill to treat it because it was “too sexual”.

• I played soccer, tennis and ran for my county.

• I mostly wore bootcut jeans, polo neck jumpers, trainers and baggy sweatshirts. It was the nineties, plus I wanted to hide my shape.

• I watched MOTD

• I like Britpop

• I collected stones

• I was a girl guide

• My breasts hurt constantly. I was told to hide them away at all times.

• I wore a short skirt on a summer day and my grandmother called me a slut and I was grounded for a month.

• I was sexually assaulted and it was my fault because I wore tight clothes at a disco.

• My periods were heavy and messy and often caused me to vomit or suffer incredibly bad craps as well as mortifying diarrhoea - usually at school.

• I had greasy hair no matter how often I did or did not wash it.

• I had facial hair. Friday nights were for immacing my upper lip, watching friends and eating Tayto.

• I wore braces

• I had a teenage pregnancy

Teenage girls have many and varied interests and issues. We were not all “watch out world” types like Sue Pascoe and the TRAs.

We need to fight this narrow typeset that women and especially girls are being placed in. Let’s talk about our varied interests and experiences as female teenagers. Let’s allow girls to be comfortable being exactly who they are.

I was spotty, swotty and very unpopular at school. I was clever and driven and focused on getting the exams I needed to go to uni.
I was into grunge - nirvana, pearl jam etc and wore ripped jeans, lumberjack shirts and dms. Looking back at photos I realise I was gorgeous actually but would never have thought it back then
I was groomed by a teacher in his 50s in my last year at school. I eventually found the strength to tell him to leave me alone (after he started following me round the school making lewd comments) but it had a huge effect on me. Drinking, shagging etc to try to get him out of my head. Luckily got through exams and to university where I met ‘my tribe’ a group of friends like me who I’m still great friends with 20 years later. I met a lovely boy age 19 who helped me work through my problems and things settled down after that (the relationship didn’t last but he was a good person who made me feel loved and supported and didn’t mind that I refused to shave my legs!)
Throughout this time I always was a staunch feminist and tried to address sexism when I saw it (which I’m sure made me even less popular at school). I refused to follow trends re clothes, make up, hair etc, and it was very unusual for me to wear make up or a skirt at all. This still holds true actually!

I was a boyish geek, very short hair, glasses, Doctor Who fan bereft at it being cancelled and thus a complete oddball. I was hugely self conscious about my body, a hangover from childhood abuse.
I had no breasts to speak of and was really quite happy the many times I was mistaken for a boy. My sexual attraction to girls led, many times to me wondering if I was, in fact a boy.
I used to rearrange the furniture in my room every month, and I painted a mural on one of my walls.
I loved listening to Queen.
I was good friends with Asian girls at school, including one who loved Bryan Adams as much as I did and who I had fascinating conversations with about how much she hated Salman Rushdie because of the Satanic Verses.
I always felt strongly that I should be kind to the pupils who were in the lower sets. I was in the top sets in my comprehensive school, but I wasn't one of the posh kids who had tutors, so I didn't really fit in very well. I knew what it felt like to feel left out.
I was a total cow to my mum. Who was, in turn, bloody horrible to me.
I wouldn't be a teenager again for any inducement.

My fringe covered my eyes and I clutched my books to my breast so no one would notice me. They did anyway. I loved animals and was afraid of people because animals had never hurt me. I was rarely in the same school or the same family for more than a year at a time from the age of five to sixteen.
I was small and scared and so I was an acid mouth.

I am absolutely loving these contributions.
So much of our womanhood is developed and formed in those years, we are not all cartoon characters and cliches, despite how the TRAs tend to pin us.

Gosh there are some heart rending personal stories here.

dinosaursatemydaffodils floralbunting

I was a bright, funny, beautiful teenager though I did not realise it.

I did fine on my GCSE’s and I managed to get onto A levels though I was discouraged by school to carry on with academic study. I then did an academic degree at a Russell group university.

When I was at school I did well and the teachers liked me, though I really didn’t want to be there. I loved drama and was always doing some production or another. I was friends with the indie kids and the drama kids. At school we’d skive off lessons sometimes to go smoke and drink etc etc. I spent most of 6 form in the pub and fending off one of my lecturers. But I always worked hard for exams and did ok.

We used to go out clubbing from 14. We wore ridiculous stuff and thought we looked very sophisticated. We thought that because we got into nightclubs we looked like adults but there’s no way we did, I just don’t think anyone gave a shit. I drank pints or vodka and red bull. I liked all kinds of music but britpop is the one that has endured the most.

I was first sexually assaulted when I was 11, countless times since then. I lost my virginity to a rapist at 14. I was in a relationship that bordered on abusive with a man ten years older than me when I was 17. Nice boys didn’t seem to want anything to do with me and it massively impacted on my self esteem and confidence.

Generally, my teenage years were alright. I don’t dwell on the real crap bits and instead focus on the edited highlights. I’m lucky to have friends who lived through it all with me so they understand.

I love this thread too. Thinking of the teenage girls I know now and my heart aches for them sometimes, what they're up against. They are whole, complicated, interesting people, and there's a world out there that dehumanises them, fetishises them and steals from them.

I was an absolute mess, and I wasn't the messiest of my friends by a loooong shot. Cliched looking for 'love' and doing anything to get it. We had some fun times, sure, some close escapes. I was drunk a lot. I felt ugly and fat and like an outsider with no friends all. the. time.

I was very clever and very pretty. I loved school and was a teacher's dream - hard working, interested and respectful. I went to a large, rural state school which used very strict streaming and did everything it could to nurture its star pupils, boys and girls. I was one of the golden pupils.

I was brought up by my grandfather and mother who encouraged my academic ambitions (my mother had been offered a university place but turned it down and went off travelling instead) There was never any doubt I would be going to university.

I was very snobbish about things like music and books. I loathed teen stuff like the Osmonds and David Cassidy , my preference was bands like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple , Traffic , Free and Bad Company . I spent a lot of time listening to a radio station (cannot remember if it was American Forces Network or Radio Nordsee or both) which played what came to be known as adult orientated rock like Steely Dan , The Eagles, Jackson Browne, Poco, Little Feat, Warren Zevon. I bought New Musical Express and Melody Maker and thought teenage magazines were silly. Radio 3 was the default setting at home and I loved and was fairly knowledgeable about classical music too.

I was very feminine and had very long hair. Round about 15 or 16 I went through a phase of wearing very tight Levi jeans usually with pretty tie neck cheesecoth blouses or velvet t- shirts. Also wore long skirts and shawls and tiered gypsy skirts. Loads of dark, smudgy eyeshadow and kohl and silver jewellery . I loved clothes and make up and jewellery and still do.

I went on the pill at 16 and was sexually active- probably acquired a reputation but I rather revelled than that more than cared. I was confident and prettier and cleverer than most of my contemporaries and I would be leaving anyway.

I had a close group of good female friends. I was bullied at school in my 4th year by a couple of the no hoper / hiding in the toilets smoking brigade who fortunately left as soon as they were 16.

I was ridiculously left wing and my favourite author was John Steinbeck.

my preference was bands like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple , Traffic , Free and Bad Company.

No Boston? Or Focus?

I was very feminine and had very long hair. Round about 15 or 16 I went through a phase of wearing very tight Levi jeans usually with pretty tie neck cheesecoth blouses or velvet t- shirts. Also wore long skirts and shawls and tiered gypsy skirts. Loads of dark, smudgy eyeshadow and kohl and silver jewellery . I loved clothes and make up and jewellery and still do.

Wow, you could be describing me. I'm a generation younger than you from what you've said but I guess it was that whole 90s does 70s thing.

love this thread too. Thinking of the teenage girls I know now and my heart aches for them sometimes, what they're up against. They are whole, complicated, interesting people, and there's a world out there that dehumanises them, fetishises them and steals from them.

Yes.

I wrote a post for this thread this afternoon and deleted it as it made me sound like I had only had a shit time. That's not true.

This is such a moving thread ...all the Women here saying exactly how it was/ is. Brought it all back. How dare they think they can appropriate all this.

I was so angry as a teenager for so many reasons, some of which were justified and some probably normal teenage angst. I was the oldest of a large family and once I was in secondary school I was treated as a mini-adult, expected to look after myself and take responsibility for younger siblings who rightly hated me for it. Home life was difficult because I was bookish in a sporty family, and I was simultaneously mocked for it but also expected to be a high achiever without any support. I was the good one, who shouldn't create trouble, shouldn't ask for anything and it massively pissed me off.

I was relatively happy at school thanks to being academic and had a group of similarly dorky friends who liked books and studying. I hit puberty really late and was mocked for being flat chested pretty constantly by boys. Once puberty came I was furious to discover that I was gaining weight but not getting breasts, I remember deciding that if I couldn't be curvy I'd be as thin as possible. I had a lifetime of being told not to ask for food or complain about being cold or in pain, so not eating was relatively easy and made me feel more in control of life, as did running which had the added bonus of getting me out of my house.

I was a complete sea of hormones, always on the brink of wanting to appear sexy and wanting to be invisible, being obsessed with boys and terrified by them, falling in love/lust with my best friend but only making a move whilst drunk under the guise of a dare because the only thing worse than being a dork was being a dorky lesbian. I read and wrote some terrible fan fiction with wildly implausible sex scenes and in my first proper heterosexual encounter was both horrified and amused to discover that I'd massively underestimated the size of a penis. I was probably very similar to many other teenage girls trying to figure out sexuality - desperately wanting to appear grown up but not quite being ready and generally being pissed off at the whole thing.

I was geeky and gawky and highly unpopular at school. Definitely no sleepovers or pillow fights. I spent most of my teenage years wondering what was wrong with me. I went to a girls school but didn't understand girls at all. Outside school I hung out with a group of boys who liked the same music as me. I was very confused about my sexual orientation and I had millions of questions about sexuality but felt too ashamed to ask - there was definitely a sense of 'girls shouldn't ask about sex because it's dirty'. I noticed that boys knew more: my friends would tell me stuff but they only knew about boys' sexuality and knew nothing about girls. The existence of the clitoris was such a big secret that no one ever mentioned it and it wasn't in the diagrams in the biology text books, so I'm still pretending I haven't heard of it. Also, nice girls don't wank.