In Defense of the “Pick-me” Girl

By   KATHERINE  LUO ‘28

“Pick me, choose me, love me.”

Meredith’s infamous line in Grey’s Anatomy, unknowingly and quite unfavorably, would go on to become the anthem of the “pick-me” girls. Some would go so far as to say that Ellen Pompeo’s character was the original pick-me girl, the founding mother of the dreaded and hated community that seems to be universal to every school. Phillips Exeter Academy is no exception, and I bet a few come to mind.

Pick me!

Where did the term “pick-me” really come from? As is the case with many modern, mistakenly labeled “Tiktok” slangs, the moniker had originated from AAVE, African American Vernacular English. In 2016, a trend spread on Black Twitter under the hashtag #TweetLikeAPickMe where black women would post in the satirical caricature of a woman who was “not like the other girls.” These tweets often characterized pick-me’s as women who willingly trade their dignity and self-respect for her boyfriend or husband’s approval. They are portrayed as trad-wife-wannabes and dedicated bootlickers, treating their male partners in ways “other girls” wouldn’t. For example, getting up at 5 a.m. everyday to clean the house and cook her boyfriend breakfast in bed, and even forgiving him for cheating under the excuse that “people make mistakes.” (Really, they mean that men, not people, do. If a woman were to stray, they would jump on that flaw and eat them alive.) These women would go as far as to label other women as “sluts” and shame them for activities that clashed with their mindset including partying, drinking, and casual sex. Promiscuity is viewed as inherently and perpetually evil, and the “purity” and servitude pick-me’s maintain supposedly makes them far superior.

This is not to say that the trad-wife life is inherently pick-me. The difference lies in the fact that pick-me’s will put down other women because they don’t act according to their exaggerated lifestyle. It is never a matter of their enjoyment in their lifestyle and relationships, but rather a matter of their enjoyment of feeling superior to other women. They chase this feeling so fervently that they willingly subject themselves to the gaze of males that hate them. Pick-mes hope that through their shared internalized misogyny, bigoted men will bond with them and give them the attention and approval they so badly crave. They are willing to undermine the feminist movement for selfish, meager gain. What pick-me’s fail (or perhaps neglect) to recognize, is that the men they appeal to are just as ready to put them down as they have with other women.

The psyche of the pick-me girl is a vicious cycle, an endless and unwinnable battle of destroying one’s own ego and begging for others to build it back up again; a battle, truely, only fought with themselves. Simultaneously, they throw away their self respect and those of other women in hopes for some respect from their male peers. However, they will never receive said respect because they’ve thrown away their capacity for it. It takes a new kind of self-hatred, known or unknown to the pick-me girl, to behave in such a self and socially destructive manner.

Choose me!

When I was in elementary school, I had a curious distaste for what I considered “girly.”  I declared to my parents that I hated the color pink, and I declared to the world that I was different because of it. Now that I am older, I’ve outgrown this aversion to femininity. However, having been part of a largely male friend group, I often find myself questioning: “ Oh god, am I a pick-me girl?”

What exactly is the root of this tomboy phenomenon that swept through young girls like me? We do not live in a vacuum, and as impressionable children, all our beliefs and opinions form from our parental-controlled access to interpersonal interactions and media.

From birth, little girls are socialized in a very rigid and specific manner. They leave the hospital to see the world for the first time through a bundle of pink. Pink pacifiers, pink dresses, pink princesses. Daily, they are barraged with objects and ideas of the ultra-feminine. Many little girls love it, but for the others who aren’t entirely obsessed with pink and princesses, these ideologies feel like they’re being stuffed down their throats. In frustration, they lash out, proclaiming: “I hate pink! I hate princesses!” The forced closeness with femininity in turn repels it further than ever before.

Furthermore, portrayals of feminine characters in popular teen-targeting media often antagonizes femininity. For example, the classic movie trope of the popular mean girl, gorgeous and vain and stupid, losing the hot guy to the nerdy girl, the nobody that was ugly until she took off her glasses. Not only do these movies exemplify the pick-me tendency to pit girls against other girls for the attention of a guy, they also drive the bimbofication of feminine girls. To teen girls, being feminine isn’t only a stylistic choice, but also a guarantee of being unintelligent, unkind, and ultimately unsuccessful.

Love me!

By definition, pick-me girls are girls that put down other girls for male attention.  Originally, #TweetLikeAPickMe was a sort of movement against women who act according to internalized misogyny. However, the meaning of the term has been distorted in the almost decade it has existed. It became no longer a term against misogyny but a conduit for it.

There is no escaping the pick-me label: She doesn’t wear make-up? Pick-me. She wears too much make-up? Pick me. She’s mean to other girls? Pick-me. She’s too nice to other girls? Pick-me. She dresses basic? Pick-me. She dresses alternative? Pick-me. She is short? Pick-me. She is tall? Pick-me. She doesn’t literally do anything? God! What a pick-me!

There is no winning with the cyclical nature of misogyny. A girl can be picked apart so completely by others that any and every trait she possesses can be used against her. Just let girls live.

All this is not to claim there are not girls out there that fall under the intended definition of pick-me. Rather, it is to encourage a reflection on our own assumptions and think twice before we slap on someone the pick-me label. Are those pick-me’s at Phillips Exeter Academy that came to mind really pick-me’s? Or, are they just a projection of our own internalized misogyny and general dislike for them, ready to grapple at any slightest flaw in a girl’s personality? I must urge you to reconsider, as once you see someone as a pick-me, you can’t see them as anything more.