We need to talk about the "I'm not like other girls" problem in historical costume dramas

I've got a character, a Jewish teenager in an alternate 1850-60s. She's obviously different from other girls. Like, she drinks, smokes, swears, is obsessed with military history, makes friends with brothel workers, and is a semi-trained assassin. In no way does she differentiate herself from her peers. Hell, her bestie is a refined, intelligent, mannerly young lady, and there's zero comparison.

If she can avoid saying she's not like other girls, so can everyone else.

I was SO irritated by Anne with an E. Like, sure the actress was fabulous but we had some generic "I'm not like other girls, I'm PROGRESSIVE" girl running around pretending to be our Anne, and like... Anne wasn't like most of the other girls in her life, true, but in a very different way than the trope entails. I wanted my Anne who loved beautiful stylish clothes and feminine activities - not ALL of them, but many of them! While still also being a force of nature and creativity and positivity. I stopped watching bc it was starting to feel like they were trying to say that living a good life where you try to do right by the people around you is somehow insufficient to be a "good person"? You had to be EXTREME and GO TO PLACES WHERE PEOPLE HAD IT WORSE and EXPERIENCE THEIR SUFFERING idk it was weird and I didn't like it. :/

(also in re: contrarianism, ie the Bloomers, I think that because our culture has changed, and standing out from the norm is not as much of a shocking concept anymore. So it almost sounds like respectability politics and such, but modern equality/justice movements are functioning in a very different society than the Bloomers existed in.)

Hedy Lamarr: fashionable actress, landmark inventor and scientist.

Unfortunately, we got a heavily abridged version of Little women as school reading.

Whatever was interesting and redeeming about that book got diluted by the butchered descriptions and scenes.

I keep wondering if any of the writers have big boobs and haven’t worn a bra for a for several weeks. I had to this summer because of surgery. Not very comfortable having my 42 d flopping around

I can't stand this video. 😢

Anne with an E is pretty true to form for Anne of Green Gables, the character from the original book written back in the Victorian era. The same author wrote Emily of New Moon, and both girls were supposed to feel strong passions and deep sufferings that nobody else understood. Today, it's believed that Montgomery, the author, was probably bipolar, and her characters were her way of expressing how different she felt from everyone around her. So, Anne really is 'not like other girls'.

I'm not super knowledgeable on the ins and outs of this but I feel like Enola Holmes did a decent job of having her be brainy and sleuthy but still wearing what would be considered the norm for the time, unless she was in disguise.

That Mary Wollstonecraft! Just not feminist enough!

The entire Spanish language is based on masculine and feminine words.

Bloomers obviously did work because only 40 years later the split skirts and pant-like things became acceptable. Obviously ahead of their time, but being shocking and counterculture does produce change. Also very victim-blaming of you to say it was that lady's fault for being so ridiculous wearing bloomers instead of the taylor just being an asshole.

I haven't watched Anne with an E, but I think showing her grow up and start wearing a corset would be a golden opportunity to show the audience it's actual use. maybe it feels weird to her at first and she's fidgeting and stuff, but she learns how practical it is.

I once read an anecdote which I haven't been able to confirm about the French painter Rosa Bonheur, who had a permit to dress as a man. Supposedly, she once went out dressed as a woman and got arrested under suspicion of being a man in drag.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. The whole corset thing is such a pet peeve. Just like there's extreme fashion today, I'm sure there was back then... but people think that literally every maid/working woman in history tight-laced?! No!!! A well-fitting and broken in corset is actually super comfortable. I even personally find that if I wear one during my cycle, my back doesn't hurt as badly. As much as I love them, it's really hard for me to watch historical dramas that have tropes like this, and it's even worse if the wardrobe isn't at least believable. I just can't. Regency men constantly wearing riding boots indoors is another. Like, come on.

Back in the early 1970's, I got to meet a woman in my dad's hometown that he had grown up with in the 1930's.

She was a "mannish woman", and had worn men's suits her whole life.

She never tried to "pass" as a man, but wore masculine styles which looked great on her. Looking back on it now, I understand what "mannish woman" was supposed to imply.

This was in a very small town in Colorado, from the 30's to the 70's, and she was in group pictures and apparently openly accepted, even if she was called "mannish".

And she wore her hair in a feminine cut, if short, and wore lipstick and foundation, at least. (It came off when she kissed me!)
In contrast, my grandmother's sister was the very image of prim and proper femininity, still wearing the fashions in the 1970's she'd worn as a young woman in the 1910's.

And she could run circles around us kids, touch her toes with her feet flat, and run around and horseplay... in long dresses and a high-collar shirt, and she always wore a corset. She was doing all this as late as into her 80's, by the way, a very active and spry woman.

Its been said by others but I'm just repeating it again: Anne lister and Louisa May Alcott are people who were very very very queer and most likely trans masc. I was a "nlog" but i wasnt a "pick me girl" i was a gender non-conforming lesbian who genuinely hated binaries and hated my grandmother's and society's expectations of what a "girl" should be like. Did this lead to some internalised misogyny when I was young? Yes. But I grew out of it bc there's a difference between trying to differentiate yourself from other girls bc you have internalised misogyny and want male validation, versus you're trying to find your place in the world bc you dont know who you are yet.

You and Nicole are both so fun to watch, thanks.

I have always hated the way "feminism" was presented as rejection of all things traditionally feminine.

Back in the late 70's and early 80's when I was a teen/young adult my mother hated seeing me trying to learn to quilt and knit -- unless I intended to sell things for money -- because "Crafts are just something to keep bored housewives busy".

I can shoot, use power tools, and drive a commercial zero-turn. I knit, sew, and wear pretty skirts. This is normal because I'm a country girl and that's what we do. 😉

(I'm also blue-collar, and find that preoccupation with this entire issue has a strong social class element. Women who work with their hands, on the land or in factories, don't seem to see as much conflict between wearing clothing appropriate for a job around machinery and getting dressed up pretty on a day off.

I know a woman who used to be a roofer who painted her tools pink so no one else would walk off with them).

here is the fix, pick better men to hang with, all will change, and the world be a better place, if we stop breeding with bad men who raise bad children, then the world will be a better place.

No we don't

Nice video!

Have you ever done a video about the historical line of American Girls? A lot of adult fans complain that the more recent clothing designed in the last 20 years are not historically accurate compared to the ones designed by Pleasant Company in the '80s and '90s.

A brief summary, take em down from within

Yes, thank you for this video! I've noticed this trope in many period drama films as of late. The trope seems like it got its start in the 1990s with the tomboy, kickass, "not like other girls, i hate girly things & decorum & men" heroine, which DOES work on occasion, but if that's her only defining quality, then it sort of makes her one-dimensional & weak as a character. Plus, it completely un-anchors the audience from the formal attitudes of the time period. The way these filmmakers chose to portray these characters speaks to this notion: Jo March in Little Women, Anne Elliot in Persuasion, Enola Holmes, and Alice in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. I think the Apple TV show Dickinson got this characterization right, even though it is a purposefully modern-feel period drama. It actually nails the costumes & attitudes of the time toward "unconventional" women perfectly. Emily dresses as a lady from the 1850s-60s, but she manages to make her style her own in subtle ways that STILL would've raised eyebrows but wouldn't have caused social scandal.

I am a medieval reenactor, and I love my corsets. I know that the wench look, with the skirt, chemise, and corset on the outside, isn't period. But it is just so dang comfortable. If I'm running my legs off in a hot kitchen trying to get a feast out, you better believe I'm wearing that. Can you imagine trying to do that in a bliaut?

"Not like other girls," girls must not have heard of Lady-boss Coco Channel.

A lot of us neurodiverse girlies go down the "I´m not like other girls" route, when we experience rejection from our female peers from a young age.

The only role, where i found myself accepted as a kid was when i became a tombboy and rejected any adjectives that where deemed "feminine". Mostly, because my male peers where not as socially adept at spotting my shortcomings.
As i came into my teenage years and boys suddenly saw me as a potential sexual partner i lost these connections too. And soon after i encountered sociology and feminism. So now it was time to deconstruct my rejection of feminity and start on the journey of discovering my own feminine traits. Still it took me years to not see hyperfeminine people as potential bullies. I am thankful that i have found my place in this world as the person that i am now.
But realizing that a lot of the rejection of femine traits might stem from a not so healthy coping mechanism for dealing with not fitting in, seems vital to me.

im not stinky i just have a cold😭

It's always been EXPECTED of women to look appealing to men. Many women broke away from what women are traditionaly expected to wear so that we would have the freedom to wear pants, not wear make up, let our hair be free and not wear bras if we don't want to. A woman choosing to not wear "traditional" women's attire is not saying she's better or not like other girls. She just doesn't want to dress like that. I'm grateful for the women that broke the mold. They gave me the freedom to dress and act in a way that I feel the most comfortable in figuratively and literally.

i believe that there are important roles in progressive movements played by both women who dress more radically AND women who behave more "by the book" to play into the privileges and benefits that their social standing grants them, and the failures and successes of both should be explored equally

Having woen a coraet for many events i NEVER had an issue breathing...moving (sitting was hard but i have a very short torso) in fact it helped me stand up straight and gave me a fabulous silhouette

Honestly wouldnt the mom in Mary Poppins be a very good example of this she was still very feminjne while continuously going to womens sufferage rallies and picket lines etc?

Speaking of clothes .. I love yours 😂 where do you get your clothes?

CHOPIN & GEORGE SAND!!!!!

Honestly when I watched the first season of bridgerton, I actually found Daphne more feminist than her modern feminist sister. Because Eloise just seemed so out of place with her modern feminist values, but Daphne clearly fighting for her own agency with Anthony and Simon seemed so much like what an actual woman of that time would be fighting for. Not that Eloise's wants weren't valid too, but they just seemed so clumsily done.

I love the 1980s Anne...not interested in any remakes. Their relationship is something so wholesome and supportive, everyone should have that. Anne wanted to be smart with pretty dresses. I TOTALLY GET IT. Maybe not with puffed sleeves quite that big, but the frills and lace, sure!

Generally speaking, the "other" is not something people want shoved in their faces, aggressively or not, because it can just be weird and the people can get loud and annoying. No one listens to loud and annoying and no one wants to be around weirdos, so of course women who dressed like that back then weren't looked on very well. That kind of goes for now, too; tatted up, studded up, rainbow'd up, crazy fashion with screechy voices and hysterics to match get avoided and ignored. Your clothing might be your "armor", but sometimes you've got to be more subtle to make your point. Susan B. Anthony figured that one out.

I wonder if some of this newer filmography depicting the rejection of the corset has anything to do with the often mythologized idea that mid-twentieth century feminists were burning bras. As in, have we engrained that idea of feminism into our heads so much that when we want to make representations of history with feminists characters we impose upon it newer concepts of what feminism looks like. In both cases, corsets being uncomfortable torture devices and bras being burned are now looked at with a critical eye in terms of their universal validity.

Sooo dramatic))) I like it!

I’m feminine and I love to play video games and I use to play rugby. I don’t think your taste for some activities make you more or less woman. I consider myself a typical girl.

You know, I'm planning some flintlock fantasy stories about a female Half-Orc adventurer. She can kick butt six ways to Sunday and makes a living fighting Monsters, but she only wears breeches when necessary. However, wearing feminine attire, especially fashionable feminine attire, gives her a lot of confidence in a social setting. Not only does she like wearing dresses, she enjoys designing them, for herself and others. The idea is that you have this butt kicking warrior woman who's also into "girly" things. I'm having a lot of fun figuring her out because so many modern movies treat femininity as though it's something shameful and, worse, not in the least bit fun. It's DUMB.

We did it. We got to the point where we’re calling non-hyper feminine women fighting for their right to be non-hyper feminine “not like other girls” girls. Damn

I can agree that period peices could use more strong “feminine” female protagonists, but your insistence that that means we should have them OVER “non-feminine” protagonists is ridiculous. Characters like Anne and Jo aren’t “not like other girls.” Being “not like other girls” implies that you’re “un-feminine” due to internalized misogyny and a desire to appeal to misogynistic society—usually men you like. Anne and Jo could not be more unlike that. And the idea that it’s unrealistic is highly questionable. Gender nonconformity has always been a thing.

Your avid endorsement of respectability politics is also… unpleasant

Anne with an E was garbage.

Yes! It bugs me when they put more modern ideals on politics into historical dramas. It does not fit.

little off topic but some of these points remind me why I like the older versions of barbie. barbie's entire character is that she can be both this hyper feminine character who stands for traditionally femine characteristics but still remains independent, powerful, and capable.

barbie stands for feminism as being capable but still able to indulge in what is stereotypically feminine hobbies and desires. you can be a capable woman that is femine

What in the world is "female identifying people/person"????

Anne with an E and Little Women were celebrations of a bunch of different women, all unique. I don't think they fit this trope even with Jo being more career focused than her sisters, she still desired love and had flaws...

i always loved jo and she was someone i admired growing up. SPOILER- the 2019 version she doesnt get married -odd but ok....

weird how he not defining gender by clothing and not judging for it only ever works in one direction. Juat let people be happy with however they like to dress and if its a 3 piece suite with tie and nailpolish, corset shirtblouse and secret pants, hat, waistcoat and poofy skirt or just the frilliest dress ever. . . . so what, it looks great and makes them feel like themselfs, its not a political statment