If Teenage Girls Ran America

Early in the new documentary Girls State, one of the participants in the titular leadership program for high schoolers chuckles after learning the camp song. She feels silly practicing the flashy choreography and rousing lyrics when the weeklong intensive is meant for building a mock government with other civic-minded teenagers. “If the boys don’t have to do this,” she says, “I’m going to be pissed.”

As it turns out, the boys don’t—and she’s not the only one miffed about the disparity between the sibling programs run by the veterans association American Legion. Girls State, which begins streaming on Apple TV+ this Friday, is a follow-up to the acclaimed 2020 documentary Boys State; both are directed by Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine. (Laurene Powell Jobs, the president of Emerson Collective, which is the majority owner of The Atlantic, is an executive producer for both movies.) The filmmakers have once again embedded themselves with ambitious teenagers to track how young people’s politics reflect their background and mirror national debates. But Girls State is much more than a gender-flipped version of the previous project. Instead, the film offers a sharp study of how a supposedly empowering environment can simultaneously inspire and limit aspiring female leaders.

Filmed in June 2022 in Missouri, where the Boys State and Girls State programs were held on the same campus for the first time, Girls State shows the stark contrast between the camps both in their funding and in their expectations of their respective attendees. The boys immediately dive into policy debates; the girls have to learn a song first. The boys roam outside alone; the girls have to follow a buddy system. When we spoke at the Sundance Film Festival in January before the film’s premiere, Moss and McBaine told me they didn’t initially intend for their documentary to compare the camps so directly. “We wanted to give the girls’ program its due,” Moss said. Besides, McBaine added, focusing on the well-documented inequalities between the genders could come off as didactic. “To tell the story of sexism in any way is tricky … because people don’t like to think about it,” she said.

But the girl attendees themselves kept asking one another why their experience differed so much from the boys’, so Moss and McBaine followed their lead, observing how the female campers were repeatedly reminded about, well, being female. Sometimes, participants seem to enjoy the rah-rah-girl-power messaging, including the camp song. Other times, they bristle when counselors inform them of the strict dress code and set up frivolous bonding activities such as cupcake-making.

The result is a program full of girls overly preoccupied with how to present themselves as potential leaders while still figuring out what feminine strength really looks like. Take, for example, the race for governor, the highest office in the mock government, which quickly becomes a popularity contest. One camper, Faith, who’s proud of being known for her opinionated personality, laments how her outspokenness can work against her. “My brother’s argumentative in the exact same way that I am,” she says. “[But I’m] expected to be a little more docile, a little more submissive.” Another participant, Emily, confidently tells the filmmakers about her involvement in what sounds like every club at her school—“I’m kind of known as that kid,” she says—but her assuredness wavers when she realizes how much public speaking the election demands. Even those not running campaigns feel the need to charm everyone else. Nisha, who applies to become a justice on the all-girls Supreme Court, arrives at the camp most concerned about her social skills. She watches Legally Blonde to study how to be more outgoing. “We all work very hard on the image of ourselves that we want to show to the world,” she says. “It’s exhausting.”

From behind the camera, Moss and McBaine also saw girls juggling their ambitions with the pressure to be liked. McBaine told me she noticed that their subjects were polite and guarded, nowhere near as tribal as the boys she and Moss had filmed. The girls also seemed keen on being competitive without appearing too emotional or aggressive: When friends vie for the same seat on the Supreme Court, they hold hands before their final round of interviews. When a governor hopeful fails to make her case the way she’d rehearsed, she holds back her tears and insists that she’s fine. “There is sort of internal self-censure, and that is behavioral, societal,” Moss said. “And then there’s the external programmatic structure that is keeping them down, that is saying, We have different expectations for you, because you’re young women as opposed to … young boys.”

[Read: What happens when you let 1,000 teenage boys run a government]

Though the documentary resembles Boys State in style—a mix of montages, talking-head interviews, and fly-on-the-wall footage—Girls State’s structure makes a clear point. The teenagers of Boys State become thoroughly, almost terrifyingly immersed in politicking; the narrative is simple, following the handful of candidates for governor. In Girls State, the camera trails its subjects into spaces beyond the classroom and follows a larger ensemble of participants, revealing how many of the girls can’t help but dwell on the double standards they plainly observe. In one of the most striking scenes, a group of girls vents about how they’re expected to be amiable and agreeable all the time, even in debate. Camp counselors advise girls to run their campaigns on largely bipartisan, uncontroversial topics, whereas the Boys State program has notoriously engaged in far thornier subjects. “I’m a little sick of the fluff,” one of the girls says. “Everybody says that they want to represent their people; everybody says that they want to be friends with everyone and have everyone’s voices heard. Okay, let’s have a real conversation.” She confesses all this while another girl braids her hair.

Essentially, Girls State presents the impossible question the campers come to realize they’re facing: What is true female empowerment? Even the prestigious program they’re in offers no easy answer, only vague rules to follow and arbitrary standards to meet.

Still, the film does show what happens when the girls are taken more seriously. Moss and McBaine caught them only weeks after the initial draft of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision on abortion leaked; the issue became part of a major case for the Girls State’s version of the Supreme Court to decide. In a fantastic scene following the teenage justices as they convene, each participant considers the issue with remarkable gravity and sincerity. It’s a glimpse into how these girls, still forming their beliefs, grow their confidence and clarify their positions when given space to actually do what they came to the camp for: talk about America’s social and political concerns. In moments such as these, there’s nothing performative about their power. “This is why we make films with these teenagers,” McBaine said. “They are idealistic. They do bounce back from disappointment. They are hard on themselves—[the girls] maybe harder than the boys.” Perhaps. Or maybe they don’t yet know another way to be.