For the women:

[novapsyche]

When you hear the phrase "good girl", what does that mean for you? How do you feel about that phrase? Were you ever exhorted to be a "good girl"?

Comments

[calya.livejournal.com]

I've always found the expression "good girl" to be rather patronizing. Yet, I don't think I've ever been a "bad girl" as such, so perhaps being a "good girl" isn't such a bad thing after all. If someone actually calls me a good girl though, I feel affronted. IT seems that the expression is one which one might use in addressing a child.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

As a child, were you told to be a good girl? If so, when were those times, and how did it make you feel then?

[calya.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was told this a lot, though I can't remember specific times. IT made me feel that people didn't trust me to be good, so they kept emphasizing that I had to be a good girl. It was as though they were expecting me to be bad, and were trying to convince me not to be. I even felt patronized as a child--talked down to, I guess.

[kali-ma.livejournal.com]

I get a split reaction wit that phrase. The first and more lately learned reaction is to be pleased when my boyfriend says it (we are in a D/s relationship and it means I've pleased him.) But for most of my life "good girl" has meant I have successfully conformed to a societal idea of how I should behave and am being praised for burying myself, and I don't like it.
I was often told to be good as a child, and severely punished for being "bad".

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[viciouslamb.livejournal.com]

If a cop called me a "good girl" after I showed him/her my lisence, I'd be angry. If a friend says it after I do something healthy for myself, I'm smiley. If a partner says it in bed, badda-bing, badda-boom.

When I was little, responses also varied.
Good feeling: I did something I knew was extra or right.
Bad feeling: I did something I knew was ordinary or worse, stupid.