Photo: Roman Kosolapov / Shutterstock
It's not okay, and we need to stop it.
By Jade M. — Written on Aug 13, 2021
A few years ago, I worked in the automotive department for a popular retailer.
I was one of the few women who worked there, but I got along with most of my coworkers. I even asked a few of them if they could teach me about cars, and they taught me everything we did in the shop. I ended up changing oil, and even a tire or two. I even knew more than the new hires, so I helped with training them.
The shop had a rule that there always had to be two or more people in the shop in case of injury. One day, I was forced to work in the shop with a new hire who wasn’t certified yet. He wasn’t sure how to fix a flat tire, and I had to walk him through it.
As I was helping him, I noticed that the waiting room was full of older women, and they were all staring at me. I thought they were simply wondering when their cars would be ready, so I ignored them and helped him repair the flat tire.
The older women in the waiting room didn’t ignore me when I was finally able to take my break. One of them loudly declared, “Finally, maybe he can get some work done now that she’s not flirting with him.”
I felt as though they had slapped me in the face.
How could they see me helping him with the tire and think I was flirting with him?
Did they think I wasn’t intelligent enough to fix a tire and that I was just there for my own benefit? Would those women have said something to me if I wasn’t a woman?
I bit my tongue because I wanted to keep my job, but that wasn’t the first or last time I’d be accused of doing something for male attention. As a woman who plays video games and watches shows like Cobra Kai, I get accused of seeking male attention often.
It was especially bad when I had a YouTube channel and women would leave me comments that said ‘gamer girl’ with the eye roll emoji, and for years I avoided describing myself as a gamer girl or even as 'a girl who games’.
Unfortunately, there’s now a new term for women who are believed to be seeking out male attention.
I first heard the term ‘pick me girl’ when I was watching a TikTok that featured a woman who liked Pokémon. She felt the need to defend herself because people were labeling her a ‘pick me girl’ in her comments section. Despite watching that TikTok, I had no idea what the term meant until I watched a second video.
This video featured a girl standing next to a table while guys were playing Magic the Gathering. The camera panned back to the woman who was making the TikTok show her rolling her eyes and the automated voice said something about the desperate pick me girl.
I realized at that moment that the term “Pick Me Girl” had been created to hurt other women. It was especially painful for women who have interests that traditionally belong to men. I’ve also been called the term when I didn’t agree with a woman on the internet.
Every video I came across that featured the term also featured a woman who seemed to be jealous of the ‘pick me girl’.
Maybe she was talking to the creator’s boyfriend or crush, but that didn’t excuse the behavior of the creator. Women should be able to lift each other up, and we can’t do that until we stop calling each other names and being jealous of each other.
While I hate the use of the term ‘pick me girl’, I realize there’s not much that I can do about it, aside from not using the term myself and spreading awareness about the negative term. Which is what I’m doing here.
As a woman, I hope we can stop using this term in the future and support each other instead.
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Jade M. is a writer and frequent publisher on Medium and Buy Me A Coffee. Follow her on Twitter.
This article was originally published at Medium. Reprinted with permission from the author.