It’s time to say goodbye to girlhood and hello to womanhood.
In the past few months, the word “girl” has infiltrated various social media trends. Whether it’s “girl dinner”—which has over 1.8 billion views on Tik Tok—“girl math,” or the popular “hot girl summer,” this discourse has permeated our online lives.
For many, their first introduction to this trend was in 2019 with the slogan “hot girl summer,” which was popularized by rapper Megan Thee Stallion. Phrases like “girl boss” and “girl power” can be traced back to the early 2010s.
While the “girlificaton” of women might seem like an empowering movement on the surface, deep down it’s quite the opposite. By slapping the prefix “girl” onto various words, women justify unhealthy eating habits, frivolous purchases, and romanticize mundane or even harmful activities.
Painting girlhood as fun implicitly associates womanhood with sadness.
Take the term “woman dinner” for example. While the term “girl dinner” evokes a sense of playfulness and removes the pressure to adhere to societal standards, the alternative “woman dinner” conjures an image of a solitary woman dining alone in a dark room, likely due to a lack of romantic partnership and failure when it comes to personal relationships.
Although it may be lighthearted, “girl dinner” involves showcasing a spread of aesthetically pleasing snacks while dismissing the importance of eating well-balanced meals and encouraging unhealthy eating habits. The trend reinforces body image issues and normalizes disordered eating behaviours.
The trend further implies a woman’s dependence on a man, since a woman who can’t feed herself will likely starve.
Trends like “girl dinner” and “girl math” are repackaged versions of age-old stereotypes.
According to girl math, if you pay for something with cash, it’s basically free. If you don’t qualify for free shipping, you’re losing money, and if you return a piece of clothing, you made money that day, all thanks to #girlmath.
“Girl math” implies women are more susceptible to making poor financial decisions and plays into the stereotype that women are bad at math and financially irresponsible compared to their male counterparts (wait until people find out men can also be bad at math).
Women who willingly participate in these trends and choose to refer to themselves as “girls” often justify it as a way of reclaiming their girlhood and the negative connotations associated with it. However, referring to full-fledged adults as girls implies they aren’t mature, professional, nor worthy enough of being a woman.
While the “girl” trend may be rooted in empowerment, using the word “girl” to describe adult women is infantilizing and reinforces society’s expectations that women shouldn’t age. This trend risks diminishing women’s accomplishments and undermines the centuries of progress women have made in the fight for gender equality.
As the era of “girl dinner” and “girl math” gradually fades, we must remain critical, for there will continue to be trends just like it. While reclaiming the term “girl” as a source of strength and unity can be empowering, it’s important to recognize its potential to inadvertently perpetuate harmful gender stereotypes and infantilize adult women.
We must find a way to celebrate femininity without undermining it. After all, empowerment shouldn’t come at the expense of reinforcing tired stereotypes.
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Tanya
Interesting point. I am a 46 year old woman and have no problem using “girl” in relation to my activities/things.
The world “girl” doesn’t give me a feeling of diminishing my professional skills and has no pejorative meaning for me.
I know I am a woman, mother, female colleague, and sometimes, yes, a girl ))