“Close your eyes, take my hand, now feel” (Barbie).

This iconic line from the new Barbie movie has become absolutely TikTok viral,

and for a reason. After watching “Barbie”, many teenage girls have been using this audio clip to make TikToks about something they have entitled “girlhood”. When you ask Google to define girlhood, it will answer that girlhood is “the state or time of being a girl”. However, to many girls, it is so much more than that.

If I were to define girlhood, I am not sure where I would start. To me, it is more of

a feeling or a sense of unity. Universally, it is the memories and experiences that any girl you ask will immediately relate to. I think girlhood is the shared experiences that do not have great importance to men. This is not because they do not care, but it is because they cannot understand.

         Girlhood is looking down at your wrist and seeing a blonde hair tie when you are a brunette, painting the nails on your friend’s dominant hand, or being able to ask “Does anyone have Aquaphor?” and seeing five hands immediately reach into their backpacks. Girlhood is playing with your mother’s makeup when you are little because she is the most beautiful woman you know. Girlhood is stealing all of your older sister’s clothing because you want to be just like her. Girlhood is being able to talk to your friends exclusively through looks, and understanding every word perfectly.

Girlhood is reposting the VSCO posts of girls you are not necessarily close with.

         Girlhood is crying after most haircuts you get and going on four-person bathroom trips, just because. Girlhood is holding your friends’ hands in crowded places so you will not lose each other in the crowd. Girlhood is being a “girl’s girl” and saying “I love her” when you are asked if you know so-and-so.

        Girlhood is sharing even the most prized of your possessions and hugging your friends tight. Girlhood is wishing the best for even those who’ve wronged you the most. Girlhood is the understanding that no matter what, putting each other first is what maintains the sort of sisterhood we have cultivated together.

It is hard to minimize the depth of girlhood into a single definition, because it is

an umbrella term for so much meaning. So yes, girlhood is defined as “the state or time of being a girl”.