By Emily Krupicka
If you enjoy Pumpkin Spice Lattes from Starbucks, wear Lulu- lemon leggings, eat avocado toast and own a Fjallraven Kanken bag, I regret to inform you that society has categorized you as one demeaning word: basic.
Beginning at the ripe age of six, I actively differentiated myself from “most girls” by straying away from the classic female archetype. As a child, I avoided being “basic” before the modern definition was even coined.
Instead of playing with dollhouses or princess dolls, I spent my recesses racing Hot Wheels cars and rambling about my love for Minecraft (a game I’d never actually played). While there is nothing wrong with different genders straying away from binary-based marketing, there is a fundamental issue with girls who have similar interests—in completely normal and common things—feeling ashamed.
The term basic has simplified an entire gender and associated those holding the title with having superficial values. However, enjoying a seasonal spiced coffee and debating politics are not mutually exclusive activities. Being basic itself is not a bad thing, but its use from others almost always comes with a negative connotation of unconscious, internalized misogyny.
If things traditionally deemed popular with females are basic, what makes an obsession with football, sports cars and hockey games so complex? Conflating genders with biased phrasing is dangerous and creates subliminal messaging of superiority and inferiority.
So, with fall, the “season of basic,” underway, I can guarantee that Instagram feeds will be filled with girls in Ugg boots at the pumpkin patch, captioning their post with #basic. These same girls are students who are involved in numerous extracurriculars, take rigorous AP courses and create positive changes within their communities.
Although the word basic implies a sense of ordinariness, I would argue that women described as basic are anything but.
*Photo Courtesy of best-clipart
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