In Defense of the WOO Girls
no, really
It wasn’t my plan to extoll the virtues of bachelorette parties in front of a convention of political activists, and yet, there I was.
Bachelorette, aka hen, parties are very common in Savannah, GA, where I live. Groups of women descend upon downtown Savannah on Thursday or Friday, check into their AirBnBs, then immediately start powering down drinks and smack talking other members of the group. They spend the rest of the weekend in semi-matching attire and wildly impractical shoes for cobbled streets, stumbling around town go-cups in hand, and putting themselves in situations where they can sing their glitter, sequined, and rhinestone- studded hearts out. And tears. There will always be tears. These roving packs of women, referred to as woo girls, for their propensity to shout WOOOOOOOO as they party their way around town, are universally panned by locals.
Dear reader, I used to be that local, rolling my eyes at these women. I’d make fun of their matching sparkly outfits, the reason that most local vacation rentals forbid glitter. I’d feel a gleeful twinge of sanctimony that I didn’t put any of my friends through these crazy paces. I’d offer a moment of gratitude for not having to navigate the personalities and group dynamics.
And then one day, I had an epiphany.
Basically: you don’t walk around shouting WOOOO unless you’re really, really happy and having a great time. Would the collective “we” find them as annoying if it were men having this much fun?
The Woo girls main form of transportation seems to be a party bike. On these human powered vehicles, you’re sitting around a table with your besties. The top half of your body is acting all normal, like you’re at a bar, or around a picnic table. Your bottom half, though, is literally riding a bicycle. Except it’s not a bike, since there are more than two wheels. I don’t want to lose you by explaining the physics, just picture 8-10 people sitting around a table as it flits about town through traffic.
Oh, and you’re listening to your favorite music. And singing with everything you’ve got. With your besties. Is there anything more fun.
WOOOO
Let’s say it’s not you on this vehicle. Instead, you’re on the sidewalk as they pedal by in their flurry of feather boas and noise. Among many possible reactions, you can notice how out of tune they are. Or have strong feelings about the inferiority of their music choice.
Or you can think “OMG they’re having so much fucking fun!” and be happy for them while also feeling a wee bit jealous.
This epiphany dropped other hard truths on me. As someone who fancies herself a right-on woman for other women, my contempt for the woo girls made me a bit of a poopyhead.
These thoughts are coming out of my mouth faster than my brain can really form a cohesive argument, which is dangerous. My audience, members of the Georgia Federation of Democratic Women, was rooting for me, curious about where I was going. My two fellow panel members nodded in agreement. Our job was to discuss ways of finding joy in dire times and joy as a form of resistance. We followed two speakers sharing their stories about the real-life consequences of laws restricting reproductive health care for women. The room hurt when we three took our seats up front.
We’d cycled through a lot of joy speak. Molly Lieberman talked about Loop It Up, her non-profit delivering kindness, creativity and love to local youth. She spoke of the importance of mindfulness and the social-emotional education she is bringing to the children of the community. Storyteller Lillian Grant Baptiste performed an uplifting and empowering reminder that joy is always available as a way to transcend pain, struggle, and desolation. Feeling joy, she declared, is an affirmation of our humanity. My soapbox is finding joy in the ordinary, beauty in the mundane.
But here’s the thing, I had only ever expressed my more enlightened view of bachelorette parties once, months earlier: one line in a group text. I hadn’t polished my jagged ideas into a blurb or an elevator speech. I hadn’t read about or researched an iota of the concept. These were naked thoughts spilling out of my mouth. And yet, this annual symposium was apparantly the perfect moment.
Culturally, we don’t look down upon groups of men who go off on trips together: golfing weekends, hunting or fishing junkets or going to the big game together, decked out in their team kit. Because they are Manly Men™, doing Manly Men™ things. It is the norm.
But women pursuing joyful activities, yeah, no, not so much.
If women do find joy in some of these “manly” pastimes? Gate-keeping this stuff is its own form of joy for some men: demanding women prove their knowledge of bands or sports teams, harassing women gamers.
Women’s joy has never been prioritized. Romance novels, rom-coms, shopping, and crafting are treated as frivolity (despite their being strong economic industries). Lady fun gets no street cred, because, well, ladies aren’t as cool as men, duh, so natch what they like is not cool. This isn’t even to touch upon how many of women’s pastimes are just rebranding unpaid domestic labor. I’m looking at you cooking, shopping, sewing, knitting, quilting.
Men’s joy frequently can involve spending time with other men away from home, for many hours and often days, again: golf, ball games, hunting, fishing, you get it. Women’s joys, by necessity, have been focused within the domestic sphere while children are sleeping or otherwise engaged. Often this has been solitary, because other women had to be at home with their own littles—cuz the men folk are out watching the game.
In fact, for a very long time, women were not allowed to congregate together for fear they may say get up to naughty lady things, ie sharing information and empowering one another. Or, even worse, they might trade notes about their super-top-secret, mysterious witchy powers then try to wrest control from the men folk, who are really only trying to protect the women.
In fact, up until relatively recently, women weren’t allowed to have bank accounts or credit cards. They rarely worked outside the home or had their own money.
But BOOM!
Now women have squads and money. They can spend their earnings on travel, coordinated outfits, and compostable penis straws to celebrate their friend on the precipice of marriage.
Why wouldn’t they shout WOO in the streets as a call to the spirits of their ancestors who never knew such freedoms, to tell these women of yore about the river breeze kissing their bare ankles and knees; not only do their clothes have pockets, but WOO those pockets are full of their money. They WOO to give voice to the spirits calling back to them.
This is Savannah after all, a very haunted city. The spirits will celebrate with you.
I hate to disappoint you by not having a crash and burn ending. I finished my rant to cheers and claps from the audience before we moved on to discussing that the shortest route to joy is music (ahem: scream-singing).
I’m still going to hard-core people-watch the woo squads, creating my own head stories about who is going to cry first, who’s texting who about who while they’re all sitting around the brunch table. I’m definitely going to keep playing the “which one is the future sister-in-law that had to be invited” game. I will most certainly picture the group texts about dress code, and then imagine the number of side texts. And I’ll always delight in inventing antics and street battles between parties as they pass on the street. But mostly I’m going to be happy for them and start thinking about how soon I can arrange to be scream-singing with my besties.
Epilogue: I did kind of not really stick my landing on the panel a few minutes later, an exchange I’ve been obsessing over for days. I’m going to process it a bit more and share that with you soon. I promise.
see you in a few days
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This post is so heartfelt, powerful and hysterical. Your willingness to ditch the cynicism and enjoy the WOO might just be the prescription our world needs right now!
awesome and ............why not.