HISTORY OF GIRLYNESS

 so in order for me to do this properly i had to define what exactly is girlyness? 

girlyness = feminine + youthful

now that seems self explanatory, so girlyness seems very, very broad

i decided to look into the history of youth culture and femininity to see anything but it was EXTRMELY HARD to find anything relating to girlyness and i also don't see people talk about this at all so this was VERY hard. but i succeededdd

anyways i decided to look at the oldest girly artifacts to see what i could find.  

1st girly icons:

Mary Pickford - first celeb who fits the "girly" definition having an "ingenue" image

Marylin Monroe however was the first to really make it a "thing" some Monroe "copy cats"(some say) / "monroe-like-celebs"  were made during the height of her fame such as: Diana Dors, Jayne Mansfield, Sheree North, Greta Thyssen, Barbara Nichols, Joi Lansing, Kim Novak, Carrol Baker, Cleo Moore, and Mamie Van Doren.

betty boop however was the first girly animated icon first shown in the 1930s

1st girl archetype:

the first girly archetype i could find was the "ingenue".

1st girly aesthetic:

i was looking through the aesthetics wiki to find the first girly aesthetic to be the "pink princess"

(some people think its the flapper but its not, yes it was feminine and started in youth culture but you didn't need to give off a "young" vibe to be a flapper, its not necessary to be a flapper, sure some flappers came off as girly but some also did not, being youthful was not a necessary part of being a flapper) 

which was apparently made in the 1930's (i guess the 30's were the beginning of "girly culture" with betty boop being the first girly icon during this time) here's the description:

"Pink Princess is a subaesthetic of Princesscore. It is a traditionally feminine aesthetic, heavily influenced by the Rococo era, the late Victorian era, and the 1950s and early 1960s. It emphasizes girlish innocence and has a nostalgic and often romanticized view of the past. Those who follow the Pink Princess aesthetic are inspired by real life princesses like Marie-Antoinette as well as those who have reached a princess-like level of wealth.

Pink Princess is the combination of Rococo and Vintage Parisian. Visually, pink princess is very similar to Romantic Academia, although it is not an academic aesthetic. The color palette is heavy on pink tones combined with gold, white, or cream, with other pastel colors being slightly less common. Silver is sometimes used, but is much less common than gold."- aesthetics wiki 

so judging from what it said princesscore may have came first but when i tried to research when it started being a thing i literally found nothing so i guess we'll never know if its princesscore or pink princess but it seems like pink princess came first to be honest.

you can read more about the first girly aesthetic here!

the rise of girly aesthetics:

the 80s gave us the valley girl, one of the biggest girly stereotypes, the valley girl had a very specific way of talking and had a certain youthful, feminine vibe as well. (yes it was not used positively but it was something?) 

some may argue the dumb blonde is a girly stereotype due to the fact that its feminine and youthful (due to the dumb part) but i'm on the fence, because not everyone associated with the dumb blonde stereotype has a feminine + youthful  (girly) vibe, also you don't need to be girly to be a "dumb blonde", you just need to be blonde and dumb...

others say that the bimbo was a girly stereotype and again same thing with the dumb blonde stereotype all you really need to be is someone who is sexual and naive, you dont need to give off a feminine + youthful vibe. so i'm going to consider the valley girl to really be the rise of girlyness and girly aesthetics.

the peak of girly culture:

late 90s to early 2010s were when girly culture was at its peak with shows/brands/people/games like : MY LITTLE PONY, LITTLEST PET SHOP, GOSSIP GIRL, EVER AFTER HIGH, MONSTER HIGH, WINX CLUB, BRATZ, BARBIE, JUSTICE, CLAIRES, PROJECT MC2, MEAN GIRLS, JAW BREAKER, BRING IT ON, DROP DEAD GORGEOUS, CLUELESS, THE SIMPLE LIFE, MSP, STYLE DOLLS, DRESS UP GAMES, OFFICE SLAKING, GIRLS GO GAMES, STAR SUE, DISNEY PRINCESSES, POLLY POCKET, CARE BEARS, POWER PUFF GIRLS, HELLO KITTY, MINNIE MOUSE, LOLA BUNNY, BRITNEY SPEARS, HILARY DUFF, GILMORE GIRLS, MAKO MERMAIDS/H20, LEGALLY BLONDE, MISS CONGENIALITY, SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS & MUCH, MUCH MORE!!

for girly people this was basically heaven for them, there was SOO much girly content available

girly culture was pretty much the norm (sadly it was too the point where it was expected for girls to act like this, whether they wanted too or not)

(picture is a thumbnail from "the take")

the downfall and society's problem with teenage girl's interests:

society HATES teen girls and i bring this up in this "history of girlyness" post because usually anything teenage girls are interested in are called girly even if they aren't feminine or youthful. anyways its not surprising i mean society hates women but they still want them around as eye candy, society also hates anything new or relating to the youth because idk why but young people are not taken seriously and anything we say is considered dumb or stupid because "we don't know what were talking about" so society hating teen girls and the things they like is NOT a surprise. due to the voice of the youth getting louder and louder (not surprising society wants to silence them, not saying they should but society doesn't like the opinions of "young" people) on top of that, there was kind of a "girl power" feminism in the mid to late 2010's saying things like "girls can do anything" (which is true nothing wrong with this message) alot of people thought that girlyness was holding girls back from this and they misinterpreted what girl power is and took it as "girly stuff is NOT girl power, girl power is being a tom boy"(nothing wrong with being a tom boy AT ALL and no one should make fun of you for how masc/femme you are but you should not do the same to girly people by making fun of how femme they are)  another reason for the girly downfall is due to the fact that during the peak of "girly culture" there was a growing population of girls who hated everything main stream and girly and they would call them selves "not like other girls", which i'm not going to go into because lets be honest, everyone has talked about it at this point. 

but yeah! thats all the history of girlyness i could find, i think its such an interesting thing to talk about i wish there was more info out there! i've always wanted to know more about this because i've always been a girly person, but i hope you guys enjoyed this big blog post! i think i'm going to make a blog post relating to the topic of "vibes, energy and aura" because i don't think people realize how important those things are! anywayss toodles!