"The Beautiful Girls" was incredibly writing about women, and every woman I know was stirred by this final scene.

So 2011 was the Year of the Girl, yes? Mindy Kaling wrote a book that everyone loved, Rookiemag.com launched, HelloGiggles.com (not really a fan, but it counts) launched, Tina Fey wrote a book that everyone loved, Bridesmaids came into the world, etc.

Year of the Girl! (And woman, maybe! Depends on your stance on the infantilization of women in the media!)

The over-arching themes that emerged from the Year of the Girl are:

• Feminism is cool! (But make sure it’s packaged in a cute, fun way if you’re Kaling, Deschanel or company.)
• Lady friends are cool!
• Girls getting it for themselves is cool!
• Being happy and yourself is cool!

If it sounds like I’m mocking all of this a little bit, it’s because I am. I loved the Year of the Girl. I think it’s amazing that so many women wrote books, launched ventures, got pilots off the ground; women really had a good year in media. Progress is progress. But I do think that it came at a price.

For the most part, the women who “won” 2011 fit a specific mold: pretty, cute, friendly, fun, smart and self-deprecating. So basically, non-threatening.

Mindy Kaling writes about her love of diets and shopping in between quasi-feminist missives in her book. Zooey Deschanel’s character on The New Girl bothers me a lot because although she is smart and funny, she’s also weird, infantilized and not a real adult person. Think about it, who would actually be able to sustain a relationship with a person like that in real life? The constant need to babysit her insanity would drive me crazy. (But I will say that her pretty hair transfixes me like a python every week.) Also, HelloGiggles.com is named HelloGiggles (what does that even mean?! That is not English!).

Tina Fey is really the only person who escaped the expectation of being cute/pretty/fun/klutzy/self-deprecating, and I would largely attribute that to the fact that she is older and more established. Pop culture ain’t so friendly to older women and they obviously get a pass on the expectations of attractiveness placed on younger women, because how could an older woman possibly be sexy? (Never mind that every guy I know would get with a woman 15 years his senior any day of the week.) Fey’s book is more outwardly feminist than Kaling’s, for similar reasons, I would imagine.

However, something that emerged from the Year of the Girl that I have nothing but happiness about is legit girl cliques.

If you’re a citizen of the internet who follows any of the aforementioned women on Twitter, or really just reads about them, you’ll know that they are all deep in romances with women they admire. Fey/Poehler? Fucking unstoppable. Kaling, and the Ronson sisters, her old friends from university and Lena Dunaham? Nerd heaven. And Zooey Deschanel started a website with two relatively unknown women, of all people.

I don’t know, but I think the Boys Club may have competition. Of course, this is not entirely true because the Boys Club runs Hollywood/made these women/are the reason they have jobs. (Kaling brings up Greg Daniels, the creator of the US Office and the guy who discovered her, frequently in her book and how she owes him everything.) But I think these girl cliques are a legit, real start of something different. It’s so nice to see culture icons for average girls tweeting at each other and starting little projects together. If I have to hear another psychopathic Taylor Swift song about some chick who stole her latest crush, I might stab my ears. Don’t even mention Angelina Jolie/Jennifer Aniston — it’s not 2005.

Tavi Gevinson, the fashion blogger who rose to prominence by writing The Style Rookie, wrote a post about getting over Girl Hate on Rookie. Gevinson’s ideas aren’t particularly new or revolutionary about the genesis of Girl Hate (jealously, insecurity) and why it’s bad for you (insecurity, psychotic behaviour), but it highlights an emerging trend: Girl Hate isn’t as cool.

I think the decline of Girl Hate really began with Mean Girls, Fey’s brilliant movie about bitches (required viewing for everyone). She might have been one of the first people in recent pop culture memory to speak to my generation (women under 30/35) and say, “Everything about the way you treat each other is bullshit, you know that, right?”

We’re starting to move toward a point where being beyond Girl Hate is the new cool. Or at least, that’s how I’ve been trying to conduct myself.

As someone who went through a brief, but terrible period of mean girl-ness, the first thing I realized is that it kind of ruined my life, in addition to the target’s. Later on I realized that not being a bitch and being nice to people, even the mean ones, is kind of awesome (duh). It gives you the superiority and sense of confidence that women are chasing in the first place by being a mean girl.

What is replacing Girl Hate, slowly and surely, are girl cliques. But good girl cliques. The kind of girl cliques where you band together and support each other’s shit — No Boys Allowed. Having a girl clique is the new cool. Mindy Kaling tweeted today about how Charlotte Ronson named make up after her, I mean, seriously?!

Maybe some of this girl clique-ness is part of the performance piece that is all of Hollywood, but I like the idea, and I think it works in real life. Girls have always had friends, but as I approach the mature, dignified and reasonable (lolz) age of 25, I’m about ready to close ranks and figure out exactly which women in my life are in it for the long haul. (This is a phenomenon also associated with getting older: choosing your friends wisely.)

Girl cliques are important because things aren’t perfect yet. Boys still run the world, Beyonce lied. (Tangent: I am getting frustrated by the direction of Shit Girls Say. The first episode was pretty fantastic, but it’s taking a turn for the immature and cruel faster than I hoped.)

Also, girl cliques are important because one day, I really just want permission to be a total douchebag in a Jay-Z/Kanye West situation. I love their music so much but generally find them offensive as human beings (Not Jay-Z individually, but when he hooks up with Kanye, help!) Girls can’t act like arrogant, absurd individuals. It’s unacceptable. But all I really want in life is to write rap songs about my awesome hair (they rap about their penises constantly) and how I make bank.

Is this too much to ask?

Related posts:

1. An Introduction to Baller Ladies