“I love Cricket too! I’m not like other girls.” The number of times I’ve heard girls expressing pride about not being like other girls.

As an English major from one of the best women’s colleges in the country, I’ve always judged such women, A.K.A classic examples of a pick me girl.

Frankly speaking, a pick-me girl has only one purpose: to show how she is different from other girls. These women consciously or subconsciously cater to the male gaze, and in the process end up denouncing all those parts that are inherently related to femininity.

A cousin of the cool girl, the pick-me girl, almost always places value in habits, interests, and activities conventionally championed by heterosexual men, extending to their own detriment at times.

I’ll give you a simple example – the girl who loves playing video games and scoffs at the idea of watching reality TV, especially when men are around, is the classic prototype of pick me.

The purpose? To obtain male attention by denouncing cringey, girly stuff. And the worst part is, sometimes, such women are not even interested in an activity that all the men are discussing around her, but just for the sake of attention, they will fake interest.

Moreover, this trope is more visible in the romcoms of the early 2000s.

From 10 Things I Hate About You, She’s All That, and Freaky Friday all have female protagonists who are ‘different’ and oblivious to their femininity – and precisely this makes them attractive to their male counterparts.

Strangely, all these women have one thing in common – they are all cool girls, an antithesis to their more girly foils, A.K.A the popular girl who is slated to become Prom Queen and is shown as boy-obsessed.

What Is A Pick Me Girl?

The term first popped on X (formerly Twitter) under a hashtag – #TweetLikeAPickMe.

Originally, this hashtag was used for mocking any woman who is a ‘guys’ girl, especially the ones who does this solely for male validation.

In 2022, the term underwent a Renaissance of sorts, considering the hashtag garnered 2.2 billion views on TikTok.

And that isn’t all – an old (yet infamous) 2005 monologue by Meredith Grey from Grey’s Anatomy also made a comeback in this context, inspiring a sarcastic trend on social media.

Having said that, it’s also important to note that any woman who prefers a sports jersey over a cocktail dress is a pick-me girl. The concept of being a pick-me entirely originates from a woman’s need to be chosen by a man (men).

These women, either subconsciously or consciously, adapt their personalities specifically for the male gaze.

She is not someone who has likes and dislikes that are similar to those of a man, conventionally. Rather, she is someone whose intentions specifically prioritize men – the idea is to attract men because she is not like other girls.

How A Pick Me Girl Caters To The Male Gaze?

Any social setting or scene that specifically caters to heterosexual men, generally for sexual pleasure, is an example of the male gaze.

For instance, the women in Bond movies are all hyper-sexual with little purpose – they are more like props that make everything hot and appealing.

Having said that, it is also important to understand that the male gaze is so much more than seducing a man – it is not always limited to pop culture examples and content specifically created by men.

Rather, it is a type of global lens that champions a stereotypical and rigid perspective: a man’s interests, pleasure, and needs are vital – usually at the expense of others.

Although the impulse to cater to such behavioral patterns, thanks to a low sense of self-esteem and internalized patriarchy, is real, the problem with pick-me girls is that they will contribute to the system instead of dismantling it.

For instance, this can be as similar as judging conventional femininity – trolling a girl for being a Taylor Swift fan, or celebrating Valentine’s Day. Moreover, it could be something even more basic as saying, “I have male friends mostly, since women are too dramatic for me.”

In such cases, pick-me girls might just be seeking male validation to feel desired, rewarded, and accepted – all while pulling other women down.

In this context, Shadeen Francis, LMFT, a certified therapist, told Cosmopolitan, “If men were to abide by the rules of patriarchy, relationships rooted in kindness, trust, support, and mutual respect wouldn’t be possible for heterosexual women. Women would be expected to participate in the relationships in whichever ways would please him.”

So, by choosing to support belief systems that don’t really serve them, a pick-me girl ends up unknowingly promoting patriarchy.

How Does Internalized Misogyny Play Into This?

When a woman subconsciously projects sexism on other women, it becomes difficult to identify in a primarily patriarchal society.

This is how internalized misogyny works. In fact, women can be familiar with the concept of male gaze and still end up projecting internalized misogyny. And the best example of this is how one woman pulls down another for the sake of male attention.

For a pick me girl, internalized misogyny can exist as a sense of competitiveness – and this mostly happens subconsciously.

When my friend of 25 years joined the company I was working at for years, everyone around us started pitting us against each other – more than doing well individually, we were always competing.

It took us 15 months to realise what we were doing, so we talked for several hours, ensuring we would never let anyone do this to us again.

In this context, Tiffany Jones told Cosmopolitan, “When a girl notices there are a plethora of other women for men to choose from, a painful and scary feeling can take root in the brain. To avoid future feelings of rejection, the mentality is born within the girl that if she demeans the concept of a typical woman, most men will pick her out of all the available ones to choose from.”

Plus, most pick-me girls want safety. And for that reason, they seek out male validation. However, to prove that nothing is threatening about women, they end up invalidating those women.

Also, by the same logic, calling a woman ‘pick-me’ or mocking them on public platforms is an example of internalized misogyny.

Instead of calling out patriarchy as the main social issue, we end up pointing fingers at one another. Thereby, we are all a part of the problem – it is a vicious cycle, isn’t it?