This is what the 'summer of girlhood' sounds like—by the women rewriting pop

Honestly, my entire life can be summed up by a sequence of songs,” Avni Deshmukh, content creator and generally known as the other half of the Instagram handle @iconiccakes, tells me. “When Sour [by Olivia Rodrigo, 2021] came out, my teenage brain was wrecked over a situationship that barely even existed. I treated that album like emotional first-aid,” she continues.

Truth be told, we all have a story like that. A few summers ago, when I rather dramatically ended things with a situationship, I clung to Taylor Swift’s Red (2012) like she wrote the album for me. We were both mourning over a fling that was barely going to manifest into something real. And yet, there she was writing a 10-minute song about it and, here I was, playing it on repeat, sobbing like it was the end of the world. But what can I tell you—that’s the spectrum of the female experience, I guess. Or should I say, girlhood?

Though it sets off endless debates online, what it really is, is that brief time in a woman’s life when the pressures of patriarchy haven’t got to her. It’s when she’s allowed to be naive, unaware of what’s coming, and just live in her teenage years. She can feel everything deeply—whether it’s the rush of a first crush or the heartbreak over something that wasn’t meant to last. It’s when the small things, like failing in Mathematics, feel huge, and she can lose herself in music, in emotions, and in the idea of simply being a girl.

Today, the umbrella of girlhood stretches far beyond teenage, even extending to women in their adulthood. The term has become a space of belonging for many. For an adult woman, girlhood might look like having a full-blown meltdown over a bad hair day, then blasting Doechii and walking into her third meeting like nothing ever happened. It could mean sitting in two hours of traffic, pretending she’s in a Rodrigo music video, fantasising about calling out the guy who cheated on her a year ago. Or maybe it’s ending up at a club at 1am with your best friends, ready to head home—until Charli XCX’s club classics comes on, and suddenly you’re racing back to the dance floor.

It might mean humming a new Sabrina Carpenter track with your sister while cooking, or barely making it through the StairMaster at the gym when Chappell Roan’s Femininomenon blares through your headphones. Girlhood holds space for all of this, and more. Along with the changing idea of girlhood, there’s another shift happening: Women are now at the forefront of the music industry, leading the way in (re) defining this concept. They are finally getting the chance to shape the narrative of pop culture and express the full spectrum of the female experience. After years of male artists dominating the industry—raking in awards and creating music largely aimed at male audiences—the balance is finally beginning to shift. This is a culture reset we’re experiencing.

And we can say that because, as of 2025, Doechii is headlining Lollapalooza music festival alongside Rodrigo, Carpenter, and Gracie Abrams. Billie Eilish’s Hit me hard and soft has become the official soundtrack of the internet, while Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour crossed $2 billion in sales, making her the most commercially powerful artist of our time. Charli XCX has dictated the aesthetic of the season—brat green.

Carpenter and Abrams are on tour with deeply personal albums, Roan, with songs like Pink Pony Club and Femininomenon, has been a leading voice in creating space for community, belonging, and the feeling of being truly seen. She also delivered a career defining performance at the Grammys. Beyoncé won Album of the Year, and Jennie Kim’s Like Jennie has lit up the Billboard charts.

The South Asian band, Girls Like You, is becoming popular on social media and making representation a strong subject. Lola Young’s Messy struck such a raw nerve with its honesty, it has lingered in our heads ever since. Young also performed at Coachella. Lorde has her new album coming up (finally). The list is almost endless.

While these might seem like isolated wins, they’re part of a larger reckoning—one where talented women are commanding and taking up more space than ever in the industry.

For years, the quiet misogyny of it all flew under the radar—the assumption that women in music only sing about heartbreak and break-ups. It’s a reductive take that’s been challenged time and again in comment sections and cultural critiques alike. “I think female artists for generations have managed to capture stages of girlhood,” says Arundhati Roy, a 22-year-old content creator. For her, it’s ABBA she’s latched on to—their song Chiquitita gives her the reassurance of being able to rely on her close friendships. For Avni, it was Nicki Minaj. Growing up in an all-female household alongside her sister and their single mom, they often bonded over Minaj’s discography. “Nothing felt more empowering than the three of us rapping, ‘Bitches say shit and they ain’t saying nothing’ at full volume,” she tells me.

“I recently made a close friend, and we bonded over Taylor Swift. I’d talk about something personal, throw in a lyric, and she’d just know what I meant. It made me feel seen in a way that’s hard to explain,” says author and content creator Nona Uppal. Gauri Jadhav, Project Manager at a financial service company, says her favourite pastime is decoding Taylor Swift lyrics with her best friend—a ritual that’s taken them to more than a few listening parties together.

In essence, the music and lyricism of these artists have done more than we give them credit for—they’ve become instruments of connection, helping women bond, heal, and find a shared sense of belonging.

In 2024, Eilish gave a candid interview, opening up about her sexuality, creative process, complicated relationships, and mental health. But after unpacking it all, she ended with a simple line: “I’m just a girl.” After everything— the depression, the darkness, the pressure—what she really longs for is to just be a girl again. To reclaim her innocence. To live freely.

In Would’ve could’ve should’ve, a song on the album Midnights, Swift revisits a tumultuous relationship, one she now sees with regret. She sings about being too young for it—and longing for the girlhood it took away from her. She says she wants it back. In Britney Spears’s memoir The Woman in Me, she lays bare everything she’s been through. She was over- sexualised, trapped in a controlling relationship, subjected to relentless public scrutiny, and placed under a conservatorship. Throughout the memoir, she struggles with the idea of girlhood, holding onto the hope of eventually reclaiming it. Lorde, in her song Ribs from the album Pure Heroine, talks about how getting older and leaving your safe space (teenage) can be scary. She says she wants back the mind she had as a kid. She wants to live that again—to be a girl again.

Though their experiences differ, what ties them together is how exhausting it’s been to navigate life under society’s gaze. Now, in their womanhood, all they want is to run back to their teenage years and find peace in the innocence they once had.

It is evident that female artists have done a lot to articulate the essence of rebellion. They’ve used their platform to speak about problematic relationships— whether with a parent, a friend, or an abuser. They’ve confronted corrupt governments, oppressive systems, and discriminatory practices. They’ve challenged societal norms, personal demons, and the inequalities they face, using their lyrics and melodics.

Today, they’re collectively taking up space in the industry—with women artists taking home the most awards in a night. It’s safe to say the legacy they’re building has pushed the idea of girlhood in a whole new direction.

After what may have felt like a longtime in the making, the summer of girlhood has finally arrived, and if there’s any justice in the world, it’s here to stay.

This article originally appeared in Cosmopolitan India, May-June 2025 print issue.

Lead image: Getty Images

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