I Spent A Weekend With GenZ Ladies

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Abstract

e table.I can say with certainty I’ve been under a rock for the last few years, living in a hospital during my residency. And before this I was holed up in rural North Carolina studying in medical school, living in a land where the Gen Z vibes had yet to penetrate (a place that also hasn’t been reached, still, by modern Northeast race, gender, or cultural advances in general). But in New York City that weekend, I was surrounded by Gen Z women and I felt like I was in the future, a place I could only dream of. “Girl, your energy is amazing tonight.” “Thanks, babe.”Then we walked back to a minuscule apartment in SoHo. Somewhere along the way home, the crying girl really started crying. Someone in neon green boots held her around the shoulders and walked slowly with her, departing from the pack. I looked behind us, concerned, and asked the birthday girl what was wrong. “Oh, I don’t know, don’t worry she’ll be okay.” And with no judgement at all to this sobbing girl walking slowly behind us requiring some of the birthday guests to hold her up and escort her home, the birthday girl trotted off to sip Jack Daniels from a glittery flask someone had in their snakeskin coat pocket.After climbing up three flights of narrow stairs to a studio apartment, the mystery of the evening continued. They rolled joints on the bed, popped open cans of Truly and blasted, and I mean blasted, the Cardi B song WAP. As smoke filled the apartment, someone opened the window and half of us climbed out to the fire escape, laughing, high, and engulfed in the “energy” of feminine support. The crying girl was tucked into a bean bag in the corner and covered with a blanket. Two of the girls were kissing, they announced at dinner they “weren’t lesbians but just loved each other.” And when an infamous line of WAP blasted through the smoky apartment and out the narrow window, I think the entire building shook when they sang in unison an anthem of the generation: “I don’t cook, I don’t clean, but let me tell you how I got this ring.” Then they all laughed as the bass continued to shake the floor.Also Now.Months have passed and I will vaguely and fondly remember the Weekend of Gen Z. I am now at a coffee shop in 2022 with a friend my age. We have textbooks sprawled open. We are studying for our annual training exam. We have pledged not to speak, just focus. But I see her looking up, her bangs falling like a quiet curtain over her eyes, peering at something behind me. I turn casually to look. It’s more of them, the Gen Z women. There is messy hair and high rise loose pants and chunky boots and French press coffees and animated conversations about a class they are

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in. I turn to see my friend looking at them contemplatively. She slips her headphones off and with her head angled to the side she says “they are fascinating because we would’ve been made fun of and they don’t care.” She takes another long look. “See, their skin is showing.” Their pants don’t match. They don’t have perfectly straight hair. Midriffs are exposed in the middle of winter, and they sit in a posture that doesn’t ensure their skin won’t fold over itself. And they are delighted and having fun and don’t care at all about we used to care about.The lessons of Gen Z are simple: eat until you are full, kiss anyone you love, don’t wear underwire bras ever again, compliment a woman on her energy, discuss careers and not men, hold the hand of the drunk hot mess and take her home while patting her shoulder, and completely disregard the cat-calls, actually, threaten anyone who objectifies you because it’s not ladylike to do that but who cares about that anymore?My one-decade-ago-self was slightly ashamed. I never was free of awareness of what people were thinking of me. These women do not care, at all, about anything but maintaining a good energy for their lives. It’s a level of fearlessness I never knew. But what about the women still in the deep south, or the seventy year olds now that look back and wonder how much of their life as a homemaker might not have been for themselves? And the women entrenched in the cultural duties that are centuries old who wish they could be photographers in Manhattan or tour guides in Yucatan or kiss girls at midnight on fire escapes and not be afraid anymore?Watching people live in freedom is exalting and inspiring. I hope their youth is not binding them to an ignorance they will outgrow, but they carry this into their future, and therefore change the culture of women for the next generation. What will life be like when young ladies don’t feel conflicted anymore about balancing what “we should do” and what we want to do?To the tired and battered, or the suspicious and wizened, there is a bright light in the future. It’s the young women of today that have no shame in their appearance and no desire to conform, it was just never something they learned about. Wear white leggings and a sheer sports bra to a sushi dinner. Hug a person you just met because you’re sad to see them go. Channel the energies of your dinner dates and tell them you support them even when they didn’t ask for support. Smoke weed if you want to. Have sex if you want to. Go to bed early and drink tea if you want to. They do not know about the constructs I was told about it. They are like aliens from a planet of sequined, neon, freedom.</article></body>

And I think it changed my life.

Before we talk about the movement that is “Gen Z women,” let’s take a trip back to the late 2000s when I was also in my young 20s.

Back then.

The theme is conformity, really tight low rise jeans, crunchy hair. The background music is Lil Wayne. The drink of choice is cheap tequila shots. The activity is gathering with the girls and choosing a location where the boys might be. The plan is to look cute, chatter with friends, and see what happens.

Once we sat in the Starbucks by the train station after work and when the finance guys walked in we would perch on a chair, with our black coffees in hand at six pm, and and be sure the conversation was passive and easy to interrupt. Or when we dressed up for the express purpose of cutting lines to get into clubs. Or how we measured the success of the night on how many free drinks were offered to us.

Now.

Let’s travel to the present time, post(ish) COVID America. It’s New York City in 2021, the streets are smelly and there are humans everywhere again. People are desperate to socialize. I am at a birthday dinner for a friend’s younger sister. She is turning 22.

I was supposed to be enjoying the mounds of sushi we ordered from a touch screen menu served to us by cute waitresses with anime-themed outfits on. But instead I was watching them, the women at the table around me. One had on neon underwear and her tied back with a gigantic scrunchy. Another wore a vest over a silk shirt and kept leaning her head on the neon girl. They were passionately talking about which dessert to order, then how amazing the vest girl’s pictures were she is preparing for a project. There’s a dozen of them. I’ve been invited almost by default, and they all hugged me when I shoved my way into this crowded new-age restaurant in the Village even though I had never met most of them before. They knew my name and my job (“that’s amazing you are a doctor, what kind?”) and they looked at me when I spoke and actively listened to everything from what kind of sushi I like to which I operations I like. They shared their drinks and refilled each other’s water and kindly moved the sake away from the girl who looked like she might be softly crying at the end of the table.

I can say with certainty I’ve been under a rock for the last few years, living in a hospital during my residency. And before this I was holed up in rural North Carolina studying in medical school, living in a land where the Gen Z vibes had yet to penetrate (a place that also hasn’t been reached, still, by modern Northeast race, gender, or cultural advances in general). But in New York City that weekend, I was surrounded by Gen Z women and I felt like I was in the future, a place I could only dream of. “Girl, your energy is amazing tonight.” “Thanks, babe.”

Then we walked back to a minuscule apartment in SoHo. Somewhere along the way home, the crying girl really started crying. Someone in neon green boots held her around the shoulders and walked slowly with her, departing from the pack. I looked behind us, concerned, and asked the birthday girl what was wrong. “Oh, I don’t know, don’t worry she’ll be okay.” And with no judgement at all to this sobbing girl walking slowly behind us requiring some of the birthday guests to hold her up and escort her home, the birthday girl trotted off to sip Jack Daniels from a glittery flask someone had in their snakeskin coat pocket.

After climbing up three flights of narrow stairs to a studio apartment, the mystery of the evening continued. They rolled joints on the bed, popped open cans of Truly and blasted, and I mean blasted, the Cardi B song WAP. As smoke filled the apartment, someone opened the window and half of us climbed out to the fire escape, laughing, high, and engulfed in the “energy” of feminine support. The crying girl was tucked into a bean bag in the corner and covered with a blanket. Two of the girls were kissing, they announced at dinner they “weren’t lesbians but just loved each other.” And when an infamous line of WAP blasted through the smoky apartment and out the narrow window, I think the entire building shook when they sang in unison an anthem of the generation: “I don’t cook, I don’t clean, but let me tell you how I got this ring.” Then they all laughed as the bass continued to shake the floor.

Also Now.

Months have passed and I will vaguely and fondly remember the Weekend of Gen Z. I am now at a coffee shop in 2022 with a friend my age. We have textbooks sprawled open. We are studying for our annual training exam. We have pledged not to speak, just focus. But I see her looking up, her bangs falling like a quiet curtain over her eyes, peering at something behind me. I turn casually to look. It’s more of them, the Gen Z women. There is messy hair and high rise loose pants and chunky boots and French press coffees and animated conversations about a class they are in. I turn to see my friend looking at them contemplatively. She slips her headphones off and with her head angled to the side she says “they are fascinating because we would’ve been made fun of and they don’t care.” She takes another long look. “See, their skin is showing.” Their pants don’t match. They don’t have perfectly straight hair. Midriffs are exposed in the middle of winter, and they sit in a posture that doesn’t ensure their skin won’t fold over itself. And they are delighted and having fun and don’t care at all about we used to care about.

The lessons of Gen Z are simple: eat until you are full, kiss anyone you love, don’t wear underwire bras ever again, compliment a woman on her energy, discuss careers and not men, hold the hand of the drunk hot mess and take her home while patting her shoulder, and completely disregard the cat-calls, actually, threaten anyone who objectifies you because it’s not ladylike to do that but who cares about that anymore?

My one-decade-ago-self was slightly ashamed. I never was free of awareness of what people were thinking of me. These women do not care, at all, about anything but maintaining a good energy for their lives. It’s a level of fearlessness I never knew. But what about the women still in the deep south, or the seventy year olds now that look back and wonder how much of their life as a homemaker might not have been for themselves? And the women entrenched in the cultural duties that are centuries old who wish they could be photographers in Manhattan or tour guides in Yucatan or kiss girls at midnight on fire escapes and not be afraid anymore?

Watching people live in freedom is exalting and inspiring. I hope their youth is not binding them to an ignorance they will outgrow, but they carry this into their future, and therefore change the culture of women for the next generation. What will life be like when young ladies don’t feel conflicted anymore about balancing what “we should do” and what we want to do?

To the tired and battered, or the suspicious and wizened, there is a bright light in the future. It’s the young women of today that have no shame in their appearance and no desire to conform, it was just never something they learned about. Wear white leggings and a sheer sports bra to a sushi dinner. Hug a person you just met because you’re sad to see them go. Channel the energies of your dinner dates and tell them you support them even when they didn’t ask for support. Smoke weed if you want to. Have sex if you want to. Go to bed early and drink tea if you want to. They do not know about the constructs I was told about it. They are like aliens from a planet of sequined, neon, freedom.