JEWEL ELIZABETH L. ENRILE

Jewel creates art and writes while in Quezon City, Philippines. She likes making collages and throwing events for queer Filipinas.

What do you think of conversations about the commodification of girlhood? Girlhood to me is community with other women, encapsulated by the shared experiences I have with them. And while it’s sad for anything that’s genuine and human to be co-opted by corporations, I wasn’t really surprised (that it happened with girlhood). An intrinsic part of girlhood is knowing that so much of you is assigned value because it’s marketable.

Is there a way we can preserve what’s ours from being co-opted?

Is there a way in a world with capitalism? Maybe now that we’re more aware of the community we have with each other — the secret language we share — the next step is to think of ways to be in solidarity more. To actually apply these nostalgic, sentimental feelings about the girls in your life, the people you were girls with, into more active things.

What has it been like, seeing so much discussion about girlhood?

I love that women are at the forefront of the discussion, and they’ve been pointing out that we need to define ourselves in a much better light. My girlfriend identifies as transmasculine but uses she/her pronouns, and we’ve had discussions about how she felt she had to be a guy because the notion of a woman aligning with her ambitions wasn’t there when she was a kid. If she couldn’t be this kind of woman, she must be a guy. There’s so much hyperfemininity surrounding girlhood and it makes me wonder about the women who don’t express themselves that way. There have been criticisms of (our notions of girlhood), and it’s great that people are talking about it. It’s a net positive.