The Slits’ punk-generated protest was embodied as much by their appearance and performance as by their lyrics. Here, though, they eschew all the tropes of being a ‘typical girl’, listing and subverting the constructs of youthful femininity as presented through commerce and the media. The song exposes cliché (‘typical girls get upset too quickly’) and rejects presumption (ironising the Velvet Underground line ‘she’s a femme fatale’) to present the possibility of alternatives.