More Than Meets the Eye: The Struggles of the Modern Teenage Girl

A couple weeks ago, I came across TikTok and saw a girl complaining about not having “tank top arms.” It caught me off guard. I had no idea what “tank top arms” even meant, but apparently, it means shoulders that are too wide or “masculine,” meaning she would look unflattering wearing a tank top. I’ve noticed how the internet keeps inserting these questions in our heads.

"Is my rib cage too wide?"

"How can I make my face more symmetrical?"

"Can I get rid of hip dips?"

There’s something heavy about girlhood lately. Not the soft, coming-of-age movie kind of heavy — the real kind. The kind that creeps in slowly. Quiet. Daily. The kind that settles in your chest when you're just trying to exist.

This is what it feels like to be a girl right now. Constantly being told that something about you isn’t quite right.

The Virgin Suicides (1999)

The Quiet Burnout

No one really prepares you for the way the world starts asking more and more of you. It’s not just about TikTok trends or beauty standards. It’s about the slow, daily pressure of trying to be everything at once: pretty, smart, social, accomplished, thin-but-not-too-thin, confident-but-not-full-of-yourself. The bar keeps rising. And somehow, the goalposts always move. So many teenage girls live in a state of quiet exhaustion. Not because they’re doing anything wrong, but because the world keeps demanding more of them.

More poise.

More patience.

More perfection.

You have to look good without trying too hard. You have to care about school without being “boring.” You have to speak up without being “too much”. You have to be strong, but also soft. Chill, but feminine. You have to post, reply, perform, smile, succeed, and stay grounded while juggling constant messages about what’s wrong with you.

The pressure doesn’t always scream. Sometimes it whispers. It’s in the way girls check their reflections in the front-facing camera before joining a FaceTime call. In the way they re-type a text five times just to seem more non-chalant. In the way they take a deep breath before walking into a crowded hallway, hoping their outfit looks okay from the back. It’s in the way they scroll, compare, shrink.

This is the kind of tired that sleep doesn't fix. The kind that builds in the bones. The kind that makes you wonder if existing will ever be enough. Because somewhere along the way, girlhood stopped being a phase and started feeling like a performance.

Generational Mirror

For past generations, the mirror was in the bathroom. Now it’s in your phone. And it’s always on.

Girls are raised in the glow of a front-facing camera. They measure their faces against filters. Study their bodies through warped lenses. Compare their lives to perfectly edited content that claims to be “casual.” And even when they know it’s fake, it still leaves a mark. Because when the internet is constantly showing you how to “improve” yourself, you start to believe you’re broken by default. And it doesn’t just stay online. It follows you to school. It sits with you during class. It lives in your locker mirror, your group chats, your anxiety. It makes you question things you never used to notice: the way your thighs look when you sit down. The size of your arms. The shape of your jaw. You start to wonder:

"Is this what other people see?"

You adjust how you sit. You pull at your sleeves. You practice your smile. You learn to shrink without anyone telling you to. And over time, it becomes second nature — the self-surveillance, the constant editing, the low hum of not feeling good enough.

And no one really checks in on it. Because you’re not falling apart. You’re just tired. Just quiet. Just a little more self-aware. But this isn’t awareness. It’s erosion.

It’s the slow chipping away of confidence. The way self-worth gets worn down by “hot takes,” beauty tutorials, and side-by-side comparison videos. It’s how some girls stop raising their hands in class. Or stop eating in public. Or start avoiding mirrors altogether. It’s how they apologize before they speak. It’s how they learn to hate pictures of themselves. How they archive posts not because they don’t like them, but because they’re scared no one else will.

This generation of girls is growing up fluent in self-doubt. And fluent in pretending they’re not.

The Silent Epidemic: Mental Health

According to the CDC’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, nearly 1 in 3 teen girls in the U.S. seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year. That’s a 60% increase from a decade ago. And more than 57% of teen girls reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless — the highest rate in over a decade.

Girls are also twice as likely as boys to be diagnosed with an eating disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Whether it’s restricting, bingeing, purging, or obsessively exercising, eating disorders have become one of the most deadly — and most invisible — mental illnesses affecting adolescent girls. For many, it doesn’t start as a desire to be thin. It starts as a desire to feel in control. To be “better.” To be enough.

It’s easy to miss the signs. Because a lot of the behaviors that are praised — being disciplined, quiet, perfectionistic, selfless — are the same ones that often mask mental illness. A girl who’s suffering might still be the one who gets straight A’s. The one who’s always smiling. The one who never causes trouble. But behind that performance, she might be unraveling.

Girls are socialized from a young age to be caretakers — of others, of emotions, of appearances. But no one really teaches them how to care for themselves. Or that they’re allowed to be messy. Or angry. Or sad. Or human.

So when things get too heavy, they turn inward. They blame themselves. They hide it. And sometimes, they break.

And even when they cry for help, the world often whispers back: You’re being dramatic.

Girl, so confusing: Female Rivalry

There’s a strange tension that hangs in the air between girls sometimes. The kind no one talks about out loud. Just sharp glances, quiet comparisons, compliments with edges. That weird in-between space where admiration and jealousy blur into each other. Where you’re not sure if someone is your friend or just watching you a little too closely.

Charli XCX’s Girl, so confusing captures that exact feeling — the strange, aching discomfort of female rivalry masked as friendship. In the song, she sings about feeling unsure around another woman in the same industry (Lorde). “You’re all about writing poems, but I’m about throwing parties,” she sings. The lyrics don’t come from a place of hate. They come from insecurity. From constantly comparing yourself to someone who’s kind of your friend, but also kind of your competition.

It’s a song that doesn’t villainize anyone. It just tells the truth: sometimes being a girl means feeling like you have to choose between belonging and competing. Girls scroll past curated selfies and "best friend" outings and wonder why they don’t have that. Why they don’t look like that. If they should be more like her. Even friendships that feel real in person can turn cold online — left on read, not reposted, suddenly unfollowed without explanation.

The truth is, female rivalry isn’t natural. It’s taught. It’s taught in the way we compare girls’ bodies, personalities, clothes. It’s fed by a world that offers girls fewer seats at the table and watches them fight for them. We’re taught there’s only room for one.

One pretty girl.

One funny girl.

One successful girl.

One “main character.”

So instead of building each other up, girls are conditioned to view each other as threats — even when they don’t want to. This kind of rivalry is dangerous not because it’s loud, but because it’s quiet. It makes you second-guess real connection. It isolates you in rooms full of people. It turns friendship into something fragile and performative.

However, there’s power in unlearning this script. In choosing to celebrate other girls instead of resenting them. In healing together instead of hiding from each other.

And maybe that’s what Charli’s song is really about. Not just confusion, but a craving. A desire to feel safe with other girls again.

Boys Will Be Boys — But What About the Girls?

Boys mess up and it’s brushed off as a phase — “He’s just being a boy”. But when girls make mistakes, it sticks. It becomes a reflection of who they are. Not just something they did, but something they are.

From a young age, girls are expected to carry the weight of emotional responsibility. They’re told to say sorry first. To not be “mean.” To keep the peace, even when they’re the ones hurting. When a boy teases a girl, it’s flirtation. When a girl stands up for herself, it’s attitude.

Girls are taught to self-monitor constantly — to scan their behavior, tone, and body language in real time. To make sure they’re not being “bossy” or “clingy” or “cold.” Girls are taught to suffer gracefully. To hold it together. They learn how to say no without making anyone uncomfortable. How to feel a heartbreak without looking like the “crazy ex-girlfriend.” How to be a "pretty crier". How to keep her legs crossed in a crowed room. How to hurt quietly, and never inconvenience anyone with the weight of their emotions.

Meanwhile, boys are taught freedom. Freedom to be loud. To say the wrong thing. To act out. To exist without explanation.

So what happens? Girls shrink. They begin to second-guess their feelings. They don’t call people out when they should. They over-apologize for things that weren’t their fault. They bottle up their anger because it’s not “nice” to be angry. And they push themselves to be perfect — not because they want to be, but because they’re scared of what happens if they’re not.

A boy who messes up gets a second chance. A girl who messes up gets a reputation.

It’s not just unfair, it’s harmful. It makes girls feel like they’re walking a tightrope every day, trying not to fall off the edge of being “too emotional” or “not emotional enough.” They’re raised to please, not to live.

But girls deserve to be flawed. To be messy. To lash out. To make mistakes without it defining their worth. To be forgiven. To be allowed the same softness and second chances the world so often gives to boys.

If “boys will be boys,” then maybe it’s time to ask a better question: When will girls be allowed to just... be?

Embracing true girlhood

Double standards and societal pressures don’t just shape how teenage girls see the world — they shape how girls see themselves. It’s a constant balancing act between being who they truly are and who they’re expected to be. The exhausting, quiet struggles they face often go unnoticed because society still hasn’t caught up to the reality of their experience.

But recognizing these unfair expectations is the very first step. Girls have it hard. Not some of them, all of them. Keep that in mind when a friend, a sister, or a mother is having a bad day. Greet them with open arms. With patience. With softness.

Girls deserve to be seen, heard, and valued without conditions or comparisons. They deserve to cry without being called dramatic, to fail without being labeled disappointing, to be angry without being dismissed.

Only when we support each other can we create a world where every girl feels free to be herself — messy, imperfect, curious, emotional, too loud, too soft, too much, or not enough.

Cause at the end of the day, we're just girls.

---

Author's note:

Hi! It's been a minute since I published an article and I apologize... I swear I'm not slacking...

Balancing out two jobs, summer classes and a transfer application has been super hard.

I’ve been working on this article over the past week or two, and I have a few more pieces ready to be uploaded soon. This one is probably my favorite so far as it dives into mental health, societal expectations, and my personal perspective on girlhood. Writing it has definitely been an emotional rollercoaster, revisiting some sensitive topics that many of us girls can relate to. But hey, whatever it takes to break through writer’s block, right?

If you've made it until the end, thank you for your support!

Stay kind. Stay safe. I'll see you again soon! 😊

-Mari Salomão