“Girl Dinner.” “Girl Math.” “Just a girl.” Why is every other video with a woman in it prescribed one of these bizarre labels? I remember when TikTok was an app for youngsters to dance to random audio mashups, but lately every video seems to be some sort of social commentary under the disguise of humor and relatability. Social media’s role for women has long since departed from the era of Charlie D’Amelio’s Renegade. Now we get our uncritical doses of femininity from glossy, aestheticized feminism.
The idea that any woman’s behavior can be traced to being “just a girl,” along with other trends of that sentiment, has been consistently popular on TikTok for the past year. I understand why these trends have been such a hit with women across the internet: They’re easy — simply filming your dinner, maybe dusted with edible pink glitter, and captioning it “girl dinner” will probably get you thousands of likes on TikTok and comments saying “wow this is girlhood” or some other vague affirmation. But when we take a deeper dive into this trend, the main substance of it is to belittle women in a way that is disguised as “girlhood” or empowerment.
One of the main goals of the feminist movement is for it to be widespread, and more support equals more voices that can contribute to changing a patriarchal society. The internet has been a place of immense potential for women’s liberation. Online feminism, like all things on the internet, moves incredibly fast. Anyone has access to feminist scholars and ideas, or at least 60-second summaries, making it easier than ever to spread feminist consciousness. However, with the speed comes a need for palatable, surface-level narratives of feminism, and from this, the idea that the feminist movement needs to be easily digestible to be widespread is becoming increasingly prominent.
Systems of oppression overlap to create distinct experiences for people with multiple marginalized identities. It is only through conversation and action regarding the complex marginalized intersections that feminism can be fully understood and lived. But feminist trends, while espousing surface-level progressivism, remove intersectional contemplation that should be platformed by feminism in order to be made digestible for the average TikTok user. By focusing on the aesthetic and privileged lifestyles of women on the internet, feminine trends perpetuate the idea that feminism looks like you have to drink Bloom out of a pink Stanley during your afternoon hot girl walk in the West Village. This automatically eliminates everyone who doesn’t own a pink glittery Stanley, but more importantly, leaves out women who don’t fit into the narrow, privileged vision of girlhood that the internet promotes.
“I’m just a girl” is one of the more popular trends out of the “girlhood” saga on TikTok. It’s a way for women to film themselves doing “quirky,” stupid things on the internet for clicks, branding it as a silly mistake that only girls would understand. A woman justifying their shortcomings by saying “I’m just a girl” afterward is not only insulting to women, equating stupidity or ditziness to girlhood, but reinforces the stereotypes that it intends to mock.
“Girl Math” and “girl Dinner” are other branches of this trend that seem to have the same effects. Since when did it become “girly,” not to mention feminist, to have a few crackers and a coffee for dinner, eating virtually nothing and equating it to quintessential womanhood? Since when is it “girly” to be totally financially dependent on your econ finance bro husband who’s “better at handling money?” Saying that it’s a feminine thing to recklessly spend money and go on extreme shopping trips fueled by your boyfriend or husband not only goes against the idea of intersectionality and independence, but reinforces the patriarchal mindset that women are not as financially competent as men.
What all of these trends have in common is that they place experiences of girls in a rigid box, turning girlhood into a commodified aesthetic instead of diverse experiences and intersections between women of all backgrounds. At best, this trend is reducing feminism from a complex and difficult process into an aesthetic mood board inspiration on Pinterest. While, at its worst, it further perpetuates the idea that women are not capable. As nice as it would be to make feminism digestible for everybody, there are tensions between scope and digestibility that do need to be considered. An intersectional feminist perspective is widespread and tries to include all identities and backgrounds, but there are other perspectives that are at risk of getting overshadowed.
That may sound like a lot to fit into a TikTok, and it is. It is unfair to simplify feminism and place it in a box as these trends do, but when there are overlapping, nuanced components, it can feel inaccessible. However, the most important part to remember is that feminism has never been about textbook answers or watered-down narratives. It’s always been about embracing the confusion and accepting the fact that the reality of patriarchy is inherently complicated for women, and that flattening the realities destroys important perspectives and silences the diversity that feminism thrives on.
Casual language in trends is what shapes our culture. I’m sure many women who have posted to this hashtag would call themselves feminists, but it’s this casual, anti-feminist language that chips away at the foundations of feminism and often goes unnoticed. You don’t need to proclaim your hatred for women to be anti-feminist. It’s the romanticization of the fragile female that goes directly against the feminist movement. You cannot claim to be a feminist and then post to a trend that — at its core — diminishes women and proclaims that there is only one right aesthetic in order to “experience girlhood.” I am not a feminist scholar by any means. But what I do know is that in a culture that strives for simplicity and aesthetics, intentionality and rage are what we need more than ever to keep the feminist movement impactful and unshaken. TikTok trends that start out to be jokes are more susceptible than ever to evolve into much more insidious and regressive trends. Now that is the real thief in the night that dismantles centuries of progress for women.
Ansley Kang SC ’29 is a feminist from Portland, Oregon. Shocking, right?
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