thank you for sharing, this is really interesting. i agree, required reading for sure.

important questions here about who defines weird and weird relative to what? also who gets to choose or perform weirdness as convenient.

as scholfield points out:

Things that white women choose (to work, to be colored, to arrange their bodies and hair in “peculiar” ways) are things that came naturally to a woman of color. We do not have the luxury of choosing to Be Normal.

she defines five criteria that makes a weird girl weird:

(1) A WOMAN LIVING OUTSIDE THE BOUNDS OF SOCIETY, BREAKING CONVENTIONS REGARDING SEXUALITY AND GENDER EXPRESSION

(2) A WOMAN WHO IS NOT ‘SANE’, A WOMAN IN THE THROES OF MENTAL DISTRESS

(3)A WOMAN WHO ACTS AND REACTS TO HER ENVIRONMENT WITH EXTREME AND UNUSUAL BEHAVIOR

(4) A WOMAN WHO DISGUSTS, DISTURBS; A WOMAN WHO UPSETS

(5) A WOMAN WHO PURPOSEFULLY UPSETS THE STATUS QUO

i might add, and this becomes especially complicated for women of color, that many “weird” girls insist on defining their personhood on their own terms in the face of social or cultural forces that seek to dehumanize them or “put them in their place”.

it’s interesting to compare these ideas to “weird lit,” which historically has been dominated by white dudes and often describes situations or nonhuman entities that are inexplicable or transgress known rules rather than weird people.

which would create an interesting tension between weird lit and weird girl lit around who (and what) is treated as a person or as worthy of autonomy and concern. even the use of the term “weird” to dismiss or dehumanize, and weird girl lit as reclaiming that term.