How Calling Women “Pick Mes” Became A Tool Of Ideological Enforcement

The “pick me” accusation is a label assigned to women being accused of courting, usually rather shamelessly, male attention. It’s a derogatory term often wielded by other women, but it’s sometimes used by men who find pandering women especially pathetic. In practice, “pick me” is a tactical insult used to cast doubt on a woman’s sincerity, either in how she comports herself or in the positions she holds, by implying these are shaped, exaggerated, or even manufactured to curry favor with men.

The (Grey’s) Anatomy of a Pick Me

While the idea of women pleading for male attention is as old as time, the phrase “pick me” originated in the 2005 Grey’s Anatomy episode “Bring the Pain.” Derek Shepherd is playing romantic ping pong between Meredith Grey and his ex-wife, so Meredith delivers an especially sappy, arguably desperate monologue in which the lionized words “pick me, choose me, love me” are unironically spoken with so much passion but so little dignity. And the rest was herstory.

Groveling for the attention of your lover as a woman was a well-worn but earnest cliché of the early 2000s, but the more detached “de-centering men” era of the 2020s is far less forgiving. Needless to say, this line, this scene, this entire storyline didn’t age well, and it was mythologized in TV history as a cautionary tale: the woman you do not want to be. “Pick me, choose me, love me,” shortened to “pick me” for brevity, and the scene has haunted the narrative of dating discourse ever since.

Ellen Pompeo herself came to the realization that her Grey’s Anatomy character was patient zero for the “pick me girl” archetype, something her 15-year-old daughter brought to her attention. She told Katherine Heigl in an Actors on Actors interview for Vanity Fair that she fought hard against the scene, finding the concept of groveling for a man humiliating. Clearly, this is a very literal case of being a pick me; literally telling a man to choose her. However, as demonstrated by objections in the comment section to the idea that Meredith Grey is a pick me in the colloquial sense, there are some important differences.

Pick Me Discourse

Modern usage of “pick me” originated from Black internet culture and is derived from AAVE in the same vein as “woke.” They are often accompanied by digs like, “Did you get picked yet, sis?” In 2016, the term #TweetLikeaPickMe organically trended on what many refer to as “Black Twitter.”

“Black Twitter” is an online subculture composed mostly of Black-identified Americans, where Black culture, linguistics, and social issues are discussed in a way that is especially legible and relatable to other Black people, usually Black Americans. The concept of women being “pick me” struck a chord with this user base, where Black women feel an especially pronounced dichotomy in Black gender politics; that of the male-centered woman versus other women.

The pick me accusation implies a woman is consciously or unconsciously motivated by being chosen by a man.

It’s now a mainstay of internet discourse, thanks to the gender wars and widespread dating discontentment. It caught on in popular culture, trending again on Twitter in 2018 and resurfacing on TikTok in 2021. The term is largely decoupled from racialization, though you may see some Black women use variants of the term, like “Pickmeisha,” perhaps to make a distinction between the Black female experience and women as a whole; a way of signaling, “we’re talking about our experience here.”

The pick me accusation implies a woman is consciously or unconsciously motivated by being chosen by a man, and that this motivation influences her behavior when it comes to holding certain public opinions, displaying certain personas, competing with other women by subtly putting them down or signaling her own superiority, and exhibiting a questionable deference to men and male issues. Meredith Grey, in contrast, is earnestly asking the love of her life to choose her or stop wasting her time.

Cool Girls, Not Like the Other Girls, Pick Mes: Internalized Misogyny as Insult

Though the pick me is often conflated with two other archetypes that are tangentially related to seeking male attention and feeling alienated from other women, the girl who’s “not like the other girls” and the “cool girl,” there are important nuances between them. All are considered examples of internalized misogyny, when sexist beliefs about women get internalized and perpetuated by women themselves.

The cool girl was an early 2000s archetype that positioned women who were visually feminine and attractive but archetypally masculine in non-threatening ways as high status. During this period of third-wave sex-positive feminism, women sought power and status elevation through rejecting their femininity and performing shallow masculine qualities. At the time, femininity was associated with negative qualities like being stupid, vapid, silly, and unserious.

During this period of third-wave sex-positive feminism, women sought power and status elevation through rejecting their femininity and performing shallow masculine qualities.

The cool girl trope in media is best embodied by Mila Kunis in, honestly, virtually everything she’s ever done. She’s cool, fun, laid-back, and “one of the guys.” Sports, beer, and porn? Hell yeah. Friends-with-benefits setups? She’s totally chill about not expecting any romantic consideration or commitment. She doesn’t care if her man checks out the waitress at Hooters, she is too; performative bisexuality. In other words, the cool girl is like one of the guys in an attractive female body; someone he gets to have fun with without her expecting anything from him or holding him to any standards.

Girls who are “not like the other girls,” or NLOGs for short, usually obtain status and desirability by positioning themselves as exceptional or unusual compared to other women. Their game is to position themselves in contrast to women as a collective. They’re “not like” other girls because they don’t do things other girls do or like the things other girls like. Implicit in this is that this makes them superior or more interesting.

In fact, they usually don’t have female friends at all. They’ve just never found another woman they could relate to or get along with and prefer to hang out with guys because they’re “less drama,” though the problem is conveniently never them. They make comments about how they “never wear makeup” and appear clueless when it comes to canonical female experiences.

They may act like they have no idea what a popular product is or how to use it and position themselves as lower maintenance than other women. They might comment on how dressed up other women are or how long it must have taken them to do their makeup or hair, contrasting it with how they “just woke up and rolled out of bed.” More malicious variants of this woman will draw attention to a woman she perceives as a threat’s insecurities in front of men to make her look bad.

However, they are not necessarily always doing this for male validation. Some women, as internet culture commentator Tara Mooknee pointed out in her viral 2020 video “The Rise of the Pick Me Girl Meme,” feel genuinely alienated or different from other women in a way that causes them distress or confusion, or is a point of self-deprecation.

They might be more interested in distinguishing themselves from women as a monolith because they have a contrarian personality or because they’ve never fit in. These women are not necessarily putting other women down as a competitive strategy. Sometimes they’re making a lighthearted self-deprecating joke about how they stack up or stick out compared to other women.

Pick mes, by contrast, explicitly attempt to embarrass fellow women or put them down for something men hate in order to elevate their own status at other women’s expense. Misha Petrov provides a useful heuristic for distinguishing between the two: “If you genuinely love this kind of style and you feel good in it, great, but once you start using your outfit as a personality flex or a moral judgment against women who dress differently, whether they’re more girly or tomboyish, that’s when it turns into pick me behavior.”

They aren’t exclusive to any particular type of woman. Some are tomboys; others are trad wives. However, given that the pick me rose in ubiquity as an archetype in a different sociopolitical climate than the cool girl, it’s no wonder she’s come to be associated with the new counterculture of our time: traditional femininity, submission, and conservatism.

Don’t We All Want to Get Picked?

You might be thinking, isn’t it logical to want to get picked? And yes, it is. There are plenty of memes to that effect. The joke isn’t about wanting a relationship; it’s about being male-centered to the point of dysfunction, resulting in unhealthy alienation from other women and over-identification with men to the point of indignity. This has previously been referred to as the male-identified woman, a woman whose worth is defined by her proximity to men, whose self-conception is outsourced to male approval.

Much like the performative male or the fake male feminist ally archetype, a gray area lies between valid diagnosis and childish smear tactics. How do you discern which is which? There is, obviously, no scientific formula to apply nor labs to perform. Anthropology doesn’t work quite like that. We can deduce the motivations for human behavior through discernment by employing pattern recognition, observing body language, analyzing the consistency of behavior, and examining the coherence of worldview.

Determining whether someone is a “pick me” isn’t all that different from determining whether someone is generally arguing in bad faith, putting up a front, or being opportunistic. You can usually see the puzzle pieces scattered around; you just have to put them together. Sometimes, supposedly coherent philosophies are used for plausible deniability, but other times they’re sincere. It’s the consistency of someone’s behavior and the general throughline of their motivations that reveal themselves in due time.

It’s possible to be organically “not like the other girls.” The problem is that certain NLOG traits can come off as tone-deaf to other women, especially those who are hypervigilant about women who are trying to covertly undermine them. Think of it as whiplash from years of cool girl cultural trauma. Likewise, it’s possible to be antifeminist, conservative, believe in traditional gender roles, be feminine-presenting, have male friends, and take certain positions on sociopolitical issues that are atypical for women without being a pick me.

As Marsha Phoebe writes for Women’s Media Center, “many content creators flock to impersonate pick me girls, not to explain the toxic roots of the phenomenon but to demonize other women. These depictions perpetuate the notion that girls who like sports or do not wear makeup are automatically ‘pick me girls,’ when for many, these behaviors are just part of their gender expressions and personal preferences.”

When employed this way, the pick me accusation becomes an ironically sexist weapon of choice. Some women genuinely don’t wear makeup, aren’t familiar with girly things, are earnestly tomboyish, and have male friends, not because they hate women or are trying to appear superior to them, but because it’s who they authentically are.

The most important determiner of pick me behavior is authenticity. Feigning a certain aesthetic or interests for male attention, pitting yourself against other women because your identity revolves around comparison, or pretending to believe something so that men will like you more are pick me traits. Amy Ronsenbluth first called attention to the abuse of the #PickMeGirl trend on social media back in 2021 for International Review, where she warned the trend was being largely exploited by users who “use them as opportunities to attack women for myriad behaviors and interests by labeling them as ‘Pick-Me-Girls.’”

The problem, she argued, was that rather than using the trend to shed light on a discrete behavior, the term was now being applied to behaviors far beyond its original context, “turning a tool designed to call out internalized misogyny into a weapon of the misogynists themselves.” She’s not the only one who’s noticed. Plenty of other think pieces and creators have taken note that appealing to men, even incidentally, or happening to possess certain traits of the cool girl or NLOG caricatures gets you branded a pick me regardless of intention or sincerity.

Now, any and everything is pick me behavior, including being short, cooking for your boyfriend, not wearing makeup, or not knowing things other women know about beauty maintenance. You’re a pick me if you order the salad, but you’re also a pick me if you order the burger. See the male equivalent: a man calling out genuinely antisocial behavior or agreeing with a woman who made a good point being branded a “simp.”

Other undermining tactics include throwaway comments like, “She’s not going to sleep with you, bro.” Simping is an easy-to-detect, verifiable phenomenon, yet it’s also weaponized by men who want to get a one-up on men calling out poor behavior or defending a woman they have targeted by suggesting they couldn’t possibly sincerely agree with a woman without the goal of sleeping with her.

When women have conspicuously masculine tastes and interests, that makes them a pick me because they’re trying to be not like the other girls. In reality, you’re just assuming you know when they’re being authentic while having a poor theory of mind for women with genuinely masculine-coded interests and preferences.

The Ideological Bias Behind Pick Me Accusations

The problem with throwing around the pick me insult is its indiscriminate usage. Regardless of whether it’s true or applicable, if it helps embarrass or invalidate a woman’s genuine opinion, people will seize the opportunity to do so. Because there’s a strong liberal feminist bias to this discourse, which rigs the conversation in favor of progressive feminist perspectives by holding them as sacrosanct and synonymous with female self-respect, any right-of-center framing or trad-coded lifestyle becomes associated with pick me behavior.

As a result, public figures like Nara Smith and Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farm become avatars for toxic pick me trad wives with internalized misogyny simply because they present a certain lifestyle and aesthetic online, specifically one that has been pre-indicted due to its associations with conservative ideals.

It doesn’t matter that these women have never purported to live up to any specific identity, told women they need to live or think a certain way, or given any indication their lifestyles are inauthentic. Despite this, people spend endless amounts of time trying to trap these women in “gotchas” meant to prove they’re not really traditional or that their lifestyle is not realistically attainable for most women, while no such concern trolling exists for women who flaunt their literal escort lifestyles.

The saying “the personal is political” is taken to its logical conclusion, extrapolating personal lifestyle decisions not imposed on other women and choosing to read them as political advocacy, then feeling threatened by them. While it’s these women’s personal choice to marry and have children young, present themselves online with a certain aesthetic, or cook for their husbands and children healthy, time-consuming recipes, it’s taken as a signal: I’m domesticated and happy and therefore an enemy to working feminist women’s fight for freedom, independence, and autonomy.

Nara Smith and her husband are both working models. Part of Nara’s bit is wearing hilariously chic high-fashion outfits while making something utterly ridiculous from scratch, like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for her children that takes six hours from start to finish. Rather than recognizing that women can be doing a bit, that they can contain multitudes and be funny, critics attempt to tear her down, invalidate her, and accuse her of the greatest of all sins: being male-centered, religious, or conservative.

The implication is that liberalism is a woman’s natural state and that any deviation from this norm is posturing for male attention, acceptance, or provision. The idea is that Nara Smith and Hannah Neeleman traded their rights for aprons, even if they literally didn’t. Not only public figures but any woman who shows herself caring for her boyfriend or husband by cooking for him is side-eyed as a pick me with no self-respect. She’s met with snarky comments implying she shouldn’t be doing that for her man or intrusively asking what the man does for her. Public displays of nurturing are met with immense skepticism when born of a labor of love.

The implication is that liberalism is a woman’s natural state and that any deviation from this norm is posturing for male attention, acceptance, or provision.

However, so long as these duties are made explicitly transactional, such as a sex worker making servicing men sexually and emotionally her full-time job, she’s safe from the tribunal of girls’ girls. Women can make content gloating about their “bop” lifestyle or teach women how to be gold diggers, often even performing the same gendered roles, to extract resources from men.

However, earnestly devoting your time, attention, and love to a man is seen as foolish, a woman risking her heart without keeping score. The horror. It’s as if the girls’ girl cult has redirected their pick me energy toward other women. It’s suspect, too, because this allows them to earn women’s trust and appear non-threatening. The general girls’ girl ethos is understandable, but when it’s performatively shouted all the time, you have to wonder what the real angle is.

The Incomprehensible Paradox of Pick Me Policing

As much as women have healed their overcompensating cool girl phase, where they pretended to hate anything girly or pink, many women haven’t internalized the lesson beyond aesthetics. If women comport themselves as overtly feminine in ways other women don’t like, such as in a traditional marriage where they perform domestic duties like cooking, cleaning, and supporting their man, they’re dismissed just as reflexively as pick mes and scoffed at as less respectable women.

The irony is that this loops back into NLOG logic, where women dictate which forms of womanhood are respectable. In this case, women insist that a soft, feminine lifestyle makes them less cool. They see themselves as superior because they’re more masculinized, sexually promiscuous working women who’ve decentered men. Masculine traits are treated as markers of moral and intellectual superiority.

What’s funny is that as much as women call out pick mes and praise women for being girls’ girls, they often seem unfamiliar with how female intrasexual competition works. As studies in evolutionary psychology have noted, “indirect aggression is especially well-suited to thwarting other women’s mate attraction efforts. It may include gossiping, derogation, and exclusion as well as rival manipulation via disingenuous advice, such as telling another woman that her clothing is flattering when it is not.”

Sometimes, the women encouraging you to live your best life, do what you want, and support all your personal choices are actually just happy you’re removing yourself as competition.

This 2024 study found that, as a mating strategy, intrasexually competitive women were more likely to advise women to cut off more of their hair. Sometimes, the women encouraging you to live your best life, do what you want, and support all your personal choices are actually just happy you’re removing yourself as competition.

Actual pick mes exist, often occupying an insufferable position of equal parts delusion and shamelessness, but the loaded term is used far too liberally, arguably even weaponized, to silence dissent in women with heterodox positions by undermining their credibility. If you assert women only do or believe something because they want to get picked by a man, you don’t have to engage with their actual argument, and you also get to rig the power dynamics in your favor.