Attention mothers of girly girls everywhere, we have a new hero. Her name is Lauren Marbe, a 16-year-old girl being hailed as the next Stephen Hawking or Albert Einstein after a MENSA test revealed she has an IQ of 161 -- a full point higher than either of the revered scientists.
Only Lauren doesn't fit the dweeb role society has built for smart women. She's blond. Gorgeous. And among her favorite things? Nail polish and fake tans.
This girl genius sounds so normal I could cry.
They'd be tears of joy, tears from a mother of a girl who loves all things pink and sparkly. My daughter's bedroom decor is an amalgam of Disney's most feminine characters, from Merida in Brave to Tinker Bell, from Vanellope from Wreck-It Ralph to Princess Tiana from The Princess and the Frog.
Among a certain set, a daughter's passion for pink, for nail polish, for sparkles, is a sign of a major parenting fail. I should, it seems, have been spending my days crafting science projects for her and pushing toy trucks in her path, anything to help her embrace the power of her brain.
As a matter of fact, we push books in our house and we have always encouraged play with a variety of toys, created a variety of projects. As a result, I have a daughter who is at the top of her class in most subjects. She's a voracious reader.
She's smart, like Lauren. And just like Lauren, she is true to what she likes, not what society has told her to like.
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I'm not sure when the message of the feminist movement changed from girl power to "power to girls who fit one particular mold," but we have gone from trying to make sure our girls feel equal to boys to demeaning all things "girly," as if a color in and of itself can define a person.
Remember the outcry over the LEGO Friends? When girls who dared enjoy building with something pink or purple and playing with minifigures that look like THEM instead of their brothers were being classified as mini airheads in the making? Raising a daughter who embraces pink and princesses, for many women, is tantamount to thumbing your nose at the powerful ladies who worked for generations to shatter the glass ceilings.
But not for me. Not for my daughter. Not for girls like Lauren Marbe.
Girls like Lauren are a godsend to moms like me. They're proof from the future (my daughter is 7, nine years younger than the teenage genius) that "girly" is not synonymous with stupid.
Bravo to her. Something tells me she's going to go far -- because she is true to herself.
Do you fight against the stigma of girly girls in your house?
Image via trishhhh/Flickr
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Comments 12
No. My girl loves sparkley pink crap. Why would I want to change who she is? Doesnt mean she c ant be a smart, productive and insightful person...*rolls eyes*
For us old timers, its called something like the Janet/Crissy Effect (3's Company), Naomi Wolfe wrote about it years ago, I think in the Beauty Myth. It made me think about how much we sometimes put into "prep" time when we could be inventing instead.
Also BuzzFeed had an interesting graphic awhile before xmas, on how companies would make a "girls" model of something like a microscope in pink, but it would have drastically lower capabilities than their standard toy.
I love pink stuff! My daughter is only 2, and her brother 3, so right now she likes matchbox cars, but hopefully she will start liking girl things more and more as she gets older. Fingers Crossed!
I love my daughter... she's a girly tomboy, I kid you not. As I write this, she's out feeding the cows, mucking about in mud boots through cow manure and loving every minute of it...at the same time, she painted nails pink last night and put her make up on before going out to muck with the cows. lol.... She's 15 and is going through the phase of not leaving the house without at least some eye shadow, mascara and lip gloss...even if it's just to feed the critters.
She can buck hay, mend fences, pull a calf, plays a mean game of basketball and is a terror at soccer, but also matches her lip gloss with her nail and toe polish, and loves glitter. Her bedroom decorated in lime green and hot pink with stuffed animals (not too mention more than a few real animals) and pictures of puppies, baby lambs and kittens jockeying for wall space with posters of Orlando Bloom (as Legolas), Captain Jack Sparrow and Ian Somerhalder.
I was a tomboy without being the least bit girly and I've known more than a few girly girls who would die before walking through cow poop... I love the fact that my daughter effortlessly embraces both.
Why is being girly and smart a news story? The story is about a girl who is intelligent in a way that shoudl be shared with the world. So smart kids can only be like boys? Or not like to play? I don't get it.
Yeah, how is being "girly" incompatible with intelligence?