Even the psychoanalysis-happy German fun-face Freud once said, "Sometimes a dream is just a dream." Maybe Gayle Wald never heard that. Well, it shows.
When I introduce myself to people I usually say, "Hello. I'm Elizabeth," not "Hello. I'm just a girl." I never paid much attention to the deeper meanings and symbolism of that No Doubt song and now that I've read Wald's analysis, I'm paying even less attention. It's not a song that I really enjoyed. It was one of those Top 40 singles and as I understand the industry, the more mainstream an artist is, the less likely they are to have a strong set of ideological beliefs which they actually hold to, act on, and write about. Therefore, the song was never more than pop culture fluff to me.
HOWEVER, for the sake of argument, learning, and all that fun stuff, let's suppose that song wasn't just fluff to me. Suppose I actually thought about it. I would still disagree with much of what Wald was asserting. Ward used the term, "girlhood" many times without really explaining what it meant. What is girlhood? I could certainly interpret it on my own, but then the article would mean something totally different.
Also, Wald went into feminism and independent girl rock which No Doubt and Gwen Stefani were never really (or officially) a part of, so that mismatched connection counter-productively served to invalidate most of the points which would have been somewhat convincing.
This video from YouTube is the girl band t.a.T.u.'s "All the Things She Said." If Wald had kick-started this analysis with this song as the foundation, I would have been convinced from the get-go. I don't like this artist or song anymore than the other (in fact I personally can't stand either one), but it's a much better example of girlhood and feminism in music. FYI the girls kiss each other in this vid, so if you're not a huge fan of lesbianism don't watch it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1agzp_PM-Z4
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