Okay, so I’ll start with something really small. The first time I wore a bow in my hair to college, I checked the mirror like three times. And it’s not that I didn’t like it. I loved it. I was just sitting there thinking, who’s going to say what?
This is the thing about being a girl on campus. Even tiny stuff, a ribbon, a pink notebook, a soft laugh, comes with this little committee in your head. Too girly? Too much? Trying too hard? Not trying enough? Nobody asked the committee to show up, but it always does.
I’ve been in our femcore group for a while now and honestly, the biggest thing I’ve realised is that most of us were never free. We were allowed. And those two are not the same at all.
Allowed vs free
Being allowed means somebody else decides. You can be soft, but not too soft. You can be ambitious, but don’t make it awkward for everyone. You can dress how you want, just be ready to explain yourself. You can have opinions, just maybe not those opinions.
Being free is when you stop looking around for the person who’s supposed to say yes. And then you notice that person never existed. It was just everyone waiting for someone else to say it.
Femcore started for me as an aesthetic, I’ll admit that. Lace, bows, pastel everything, journals with dried flowers stuck in them. People make fun of it all the time. “Arre it’s just a trend.” “So fake.” But come sit in one of our meetings once. The bow is basically just the entry ticket. What we’re actually doing is making a space where being girly doesn’t need an apology.
The real part (not the pretty part)
I don’t want to write a cute article about cute things and leave it there. That would be lying a little.
Real life for girls isn’t always soft. It’s holding your keys tighter on the walk back from the library. It’s that voice in your head going “log kya kahenge.” It’s being called emotional when you’re angry and cold when you’re calm, and somehow both are your fault.
It’s your friend who is genuinely brilliant in class but goes quiet the second some guy starts arguing with her. It’s the girl who wants to study late but has to reach home before dark. It’s skipping the party, not because you don’t want to go, but because getting back is a whole negotiation.
And people still call this “freedom.” Sometimes I feel it’s just a longer leash with nicer packaging.
So when I say femcore is about freedom, I don’t mean wearing whatever you like. I mean being able to say the true thing out loud. I’m tired. I’m scared. I want more. I like pink and I also want to run this place someday, and no, those don’t cancel each other out.
Soft is not weak
Somewhere along the way we were taught that to be taken seriously, we have to get harder. Louder. More like the people already in charge. I tried that too, for a whole semester, and I was miserable.
Then I met the girls in our society. One of our seniors runs the entire event team. She cries when she’s overwhelmed, she says sorry when she’s wrong, and she has never lost an argument with a vendor. Nobody has called her weak twice, trust me.
It takes strength to stay kind in places that reward being mean. It takes strength to be openly emotional where everyone expects you to hide it. We just don’t have good words for that kind of strength yet, because the old words were written by people who didn’t need it.
What we actually do
People imagine some secret club with rules and costumes. Really it’s chai, a messy circle on the floor, and a lot of “wait, same, I thought it was only me.”
Honestly that line is the whole thing. A lot of what holds girls back is thinking your struggle is private, your own fault, something you should handle quietly. Then one person says “me too” and suddenly it’s not a flaw anymore, it’s a pattern. And once you can name a pattern, you can start doing something about it.
So we share notes, cover for each other, walk back in groups, and make a big deal out of small wins. Like the first time someone spoke up in lecture. Or said no to a family function. Or posted a photo without asking five people if it looked okay.
For the girl still checking the mirror
If that’s you, I’ll say it, even though you never needed me to.
It’s okay to take up space. It’s okay to be delicate and determined at the same time. It’s okay to love pretty things and still ask for serious things. It’s okay to change your mind, your look, your whole personality by next semester.
No one is going to hand you a permission slip, and you don’t need one.
The hard part, and I won’t pretend it’s easy, is unlearning the habit of asking. It’s slow and sometimes a bit lonely. But every time you pick yourself without writing a long apology first, the next girl finds it a little easier. That’s how it travels. Nobody hands us freedom, we just keep passing it on.
So wear the bow. Say the thing. Take the seat.
And if anyone asks who gave you permission, tell them the truth. You didn’t ask.
Written with love, a bit of frustration, and way too much chai, by one of the girls in the circle.
