"Girly" can be limiting if you're told it's the only option. I don't think the solution is to get rid of the girly stuff or decide it's oppressive and get mad at a singer or book for not ACCURATELY REPRESENTING ALL WOMEN. There just needs to be more options for girls who don't identify with the girly aesthetic, and can broaden the idea of what being a girl means. Similarly, there needs to be more of that stuff that can be aesthetically girly, but feminist in the actual message.
Tavi GevinsonGraduating high school was really emotional for me. I'd obviously made a huge thing out of what that experience was for me, and saying goodbye to it was very weird. So I had to be like, boom, onward and upward.
Tavi GevinsonI wanted to start a website for teenaged girls that was not kind of this one-dimensional strong character empowerment thing, because one thing that can be very alienating about a misconception of feminism is that girls then think that to be feminists, they have to live up to being perfectly consistent in their beliefs, never being insecure, never having doubts, having all the answers...and this is not true and actually, recognizing all the contradictions I was feeling became easier once I realized that feminism was not a rule book but a discussion, a conversation, a process.
Tavi GevinsonThere are moments when I am really not happy with how I look, or I think it would be an easy way out to try and do the conventionally attractive thing. But part of it is that I don't have the energy to put on, like, makeup. If people want to do that, that's fine. But I've learned that it's not for me.
Tavi GevinsonThe Internet, really. It's amazing what you can find. There are so many different resources on the Internet and I got into blogging because of my friend's sister who had a blog, Fashion Robot, which she stopped a few months ago just because it was too much time ... I started taking more of an interest in fashion, and going to more websites like Style.com or whatever. Eventually I made a hasty decision and made my own.
Tavi Gevinson