by Rachel Orviro

I'm not talking here about docile, timid, self-effacing girlhood. I'm talking about reclaiming the girl who swung with abandon from the monkey bars, who spent hours telling wild and creative stories into a tape recorder, who gloried in strange costumes, who danced in a skill-less frenzy, who wasn't afraid to cry when upset, nor yell insults when angry.

At 24 years old, I'm not afraid to call myself a girl. But if someone had called me a girl even a few months ago, you bet I would have given them hell. See, I spent a year at Mills, a women's college, and that was a place where one became extremely well-versed in correcting anyone who dared refer to females over the age of 16 as "girls." But something has changed.

Being called a girl just doesn't seem so bad anymore. In fact, the idea of reclaiming my girlhood in all its freshness and limitless potential is incredibly appealing. I'm not talking here about docile, timid, self-effacing girlhood. I'm talking about re-claiming the girl who swung with abandon from the monkey bars, who spent hours telling wild and creative stories into a tape recorder, who gloried in strange costumes, who danced in a skill-less frenzy, who wasn't afraid to cry when upset, nor yell insults when angry.

I see that girl captured repeatedly in the black and white images my mother caught with her Leica as she snapped hundreds of photos throughout my childhood. But frozen on film as well is the sulky adolescent who came after. The one who thought girls shouldn't speak their minds for fear of ridicule or play tennis with the speed of the boys. I study that sullen 13-year-old face, masked in makeup and a pout, and wonder where did the knowledge that "girls could do anything" go? Where did the enthusiasm go? Where did the girl go? I'm still wondering how to get her back.

This return to girlhood thing is not just about me; society has seen a resurgence of all things girlie in the past few years. In fact, girls have made an unmistakable comeback, starting with the riot grrrl movement growing out of Washington state in the early '90s, developing middle-market appeal for teens with Sassy magazine, and finally surfacing into the mainstreamed girl fashions of today. And rather than viewing it as yet another backlash-inspired retreat to femininity, women my age are starting to consider this resurgence as part of a grrrl revolution--one that precedes feminist credos and righteous indignation and returns our thoughts to youth in all her possibilities. To feel great about being the center of our own universe, to shout in the face of convention, to play dress-up without worrying about fashion or whether our mates like how we look, to enjoy the fun and not worry about the responsibility--these are some of the elements of girlhood we crave.

"For so long, girls have just been painted over," Lara Stemple, a 22-year-old legal assistant, tells me. "The boys are shown to have all of the adventures. But anyone who has been a girl knows, it wasn't just a time where we sat around in lace dresses playing with dolls." Sacramento High junior Vanessa McLean puts it this way: "I feel like the range of things I can do are greater because I'm a girl...The most important part of being female is fertility in all areas--a growing and expanding potential to do anything." Tapping into that possibility and re-establishing the power we had as girls isn't a vindictive thing against guys or a preemptive strike against a patriarchal society. It has little or nothing to do with the male gender. Rather, it's a way for us to take back the strength, the confidence, the opportunities lost to us before we even realized what we had.

There are stacks of studies--like those done at Harvard in 1992 by Carol Gilligan and Lyn Mikel Brown--which show that girls lose their sense of power and self-esteem as they approach adolescence. Young girls increasingly become quieter, less aggressive... and less adept in school, especially in math and science. They retreat into themselves and away from the classroom, the playing field, the adventure. If we're lucky enough to come out the other end of all this in our late teens and renew our confidence, we're usually already on the path to grown womanhood with all of its trials and responsibilities. The question is no longer who can scream the loudest or run the fastest, but how can I provide for my family? Where do I go in my career? We skipped the good stuff along the way to becoming an adult. How can we be Superwoman without having been Supergirl?

The whisperings of the girl movement started coming out of the underground a few years ago, bandied about on the Xeroxed pages of zines. There were simultaneous screams, too--howls from the punk stages through the mouths of Babes in Toyland, L7 and Bratmobile.

Just take a look at the names: Bikini Kill, Hole, 7 Year Bitch--all fierce rockers who took the language used against women and co-opted it to work in their favor, twisting insults into strengths. These musicians put this anger into their music and drew hordes of young women--and men--to bathe in the shower of their wrath. Resistant as many of these performers were to suddenly being the new messiahs of feminism, young women turn to them both for the power of the tunes and the teeth-gnashing rage of the players. They told us that anger is all right, that screaming for attention is a good thing (reminiscent of the leg-kicking temper tantrums of childhood), that we don't have to sacrifice our girlness to get what we want, 'cause grrrl is power, strength and intensity. As the riot grrrl music scene took off, its young audience found their voices in fanzines raving about the bands and what they had to say.

"It was liberation," said Jessica Hopper, the first time she saw Babes in Toyland screaming their guts out on stage in 1990. Hopper, the creator of a riot grrrl zine Hit It or Quit It, subsequently became a spokeswoman for the media-deluged riot grrrl movement, championing the rights of young women to play in bands and "scream like the boys." The riot grrrl messages soon became even more general, with publications springing up from Olympia, Washington, to Sussex, UK, growling "Girls Rule" and "Girls, Get Savage." The anger of the punk scene is there in stories about rape, incest, abuse by a loved one. But also present is the glory of girls--reminiscence about Teen Beat and Shaun Cassidy, arguments over which Duran Duran guy was the cutest, tales of Barbie's wild times with G.I. Joe and Ken in the pink dream house. These are girl memories, good and bad, validated in their importance and discussed in appropriate magnitude. The zines let us know that humor and self-expression aren't for boys only. The "No Girls Allowed" sign has been ripped off the Little Rascals clubhouse and crushed beneath moshing feet.

"Ever since riot grrrls put the growl back into girlhood and Cindy Brady grew up to become Courtney Love, the meaning of girl has changed," writes Celina Hex in a recent issue of Bust, a New York zine that dedicated its winter/spring issue to girls and girls alone. "Remember your own fierce inner-girl," Hex urges her readers. Meanwhile, we see girl icons such as Barbie winking from the cover of a New England zine called Ooompa! Ooompa! geared toward teenage grrrls worried about everything from sexism to breasts. Then there's the ravenous, wild-eyed cartoon chick. Deep Girl zine penned by San Franciscan Ariel Bordeaux--"Starring Me, Me, Me," screams the cover copy. "There's nothing wrong with a little self-obsession," 24-year-old Jennifer told me as she flipped through a gritty-looking zine at Tower Books on Broadway. "It's more interesting than some babes and muscle mag."

"I love reading about all the cool things these girls are doing and saying," agreed her friend Megan. "You can't find this shit anywhere else."

Going beyond the zines and the music, we've also seen a growth of girlness epitomized in high and low fashion. From the runways of Paris to urban thrift stores, baby doll T-shirts and dresses, little patent leather shoes, plastic barrettes in the shape of teddy bears and tiny bows have brought girl-style to the forefront of trendy fashion. It's a style, however, that carries with it a serious attitude. "It's fun," said Rasean Pennock, the owner of The Village Exchange Clothing Co., a thrift store in Sacramento, CA. "And there's definitely an attitude that goes with it--much more confident, not caring about what society or men think about it. "It's OK to dress like a little girl now, but the women are still making grown-up decisions," she added. Pennock's store is full of girl stuff, from the rack of summer shirts labeled "girlie tops" to the flowered baby doll dresses hung on the walls. A framed picture of the ultimate wild girl, Drew Barrymore, sits next to the cash register. Pennock has been in the fashion industry for 10 of her 27 years and admits to loving the girlie look and what she's seen come with it.

"It's a way of expressing yourself, of making feminism fun for this generation," Pennock said. "I feel sassy," one twentysomething summarized as she twirled around in her newly acquired girlie dress. Therein lies the key to our girldom and the importance of keeping that energy in our grown-up lives. We strive to be progressive thinking, to stand up for our rights as women, to take responsibility for our lives and communities, our families, our action...but sometimes it's all just overwhelming. Somehow, the girl revolution is making it OK for women to reach back and glory in a time before all that--to reclaim the girl we were without giving up the strides we've made as grown women. Maybe girls do just want to have fun--but we're still going to kick some serious ass along the way.