She’s not like other girls. She’s… a cool girl.
There’s Something About Mary: “Hey, you want to go upstairs and watch Sports Centre?”
The cool girl is a male fantasy—basically a bro-y temperament is packaged in an effortlessly hot female form.
She likes whatever the male protagonist of a story likes
Transformers: “Guys don’t like it when you know more about cars than they do”
She’s easygoing, and never gets angry. She’s constantly eating junk food and beer but never puts on weight.
As Anne Helen Petersen writes, “They’re basically dudes masquerading in beautiful women’s bodies.”
Obviously if you authentically love stereotypically “male” interests like cars or sports, that’s great—do you. But the problem with the Cool Girl trope is she’s isn’t a real girl…
She’s a myth created by men, perpetuated by women pretending to be her. And that just puts too much pressure on us all to live up to a fantasy.