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One of the girly trends on TikTok is "retail therapy," or shopping to improve your mood. It is assumed that some young women share their emotions in this way and show that shopping is sometimes a way to deal with stress or a bad mood.
While feminism asserts that all genders have equal intellectual capacity, the ‘girlhood’ trend that has been proliferating on social media since 2023, especially TikTok, advocates that women are incompetent in all facets of life, from financial decisions to nutrition, and endorses detrimental habits.
‘Girlhood’ sells itself as a new form of feminism, a feminism in which women celebrate ‘being a woman’ through a softer expression of femininity.
In reality, this trend deems women useless, disseminating misogyny to an audience that has supposedly cancelled such forms of discrimination.
‘Girlhood’ diminishes what it is to be a woman, condensing multifarious experiences and perpetuating antiquated stereotypes, all while operating under the guise of solidarity between all women, which only makes it all the more corrosive.
In 2022, the global population included 3.95 billion women, according to Statista. To distil the experiences of nearly four billion people into a 15-second video on TikTok is to utterly neglect the diversity of cultures, sexuality, gender expression and socioeconomic backgrounds. Undoubtedly, the estimated 230 million survivors of female genital mutilation experience girlhood very differently from those who create these supposedly relatable and unifying TikToks.
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In addition, the ‘girlhood’ trend claims that the absence of sound judgement and intelligence are cornerstones of what it means to be a girl, perpetuating outdated sexist ideologies.
Originally, the term ‘girlhood’ simply referred to the state or time of being a girl. Now, however, it is accompanied by an agenda: making misogyny digestible to socially aware Gen Z-ers.
Videos with captions such as ‘pretty girls don’t know math’and ‘Girls Not Eating for a Day: A Relatable Humorous Compilation’present themselves as just mindless or entertaining content, when, in reality, they instil blatantly misogynistic ideals under the socially acceptable guise of connection. This makes it difficult for teenagers to realise that inputting the suffix ‘hood’ does not absolve the fact this trend declares that girls can’t do mathematics or eat properly.
The most problematic trends that fall under the ‘girlhood’ umbrella – which has collectively gathered more than 1.3 billion views on TikTok – are probably ‘girl math’ and ‘girl dinner.’
It was not until 1974 that women could own credit cards– an egregious legislative manifestation of misogyny, founded upon the patriarchal principle that women are inept at managing their own finances.
Nowadays, any implementation of such ideology would be considered absurd and discriminatory; after all, menhave 2% more credit card debt and 20% more personal debt than women. Unless, of course, the belief that women were incompetent to manage finances is disguised by a clever pseudonym. Like ‘girl math.’
‘Girl math’ uses nonsensical logic to justify irresponsible spending habits, arguing that a $200 dress is only $10 as it will be worn 20 times or that purchasing something with cash makes it free because it “won’t change your bank balance.”
At its core, ‘girl math’ perpetuates the oppressive idea that women fundamentally make irresponsible financial decisions by attributing erratic spending habits to them – even though men are 14% more likely to spend over $500 on an impulse purchase. This age-old stereotype has oppressed women for millennia, depriving them of financial autonomy and ultimately ensuring they can never achieve freedom.
This is the foundation of women’s inability to access inheritance and assets in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, the Maldives and most countries in the Middle East, the regions with the least gender equity in the world. Gen Z trends only normalise this outrageous discrimination, guaranteeing that we carry misogyny into this supposedly ‘woke’ period in history.
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No social media trend exhibits the disguised sexism in our generation better than ‘girl dinner’. ‘Girl dinner’ TikTok videos depict content creators substituting gum or cigarettes for meals, eating minimally or skipping meals altogether, and presenting disordered eating as a means of becoming a ‘hot girl.’
At least 9% of the global population reportedly live with eating disorders, and 90% of anorexia nervosa sufferers are women. Rather than addressing its supposed call to action of supporting women, ‘girl dinners’ glorify and monetise one of the most fatal mental illnesses in the world, which results in one death every 52 minutes.
Even more alarming is the demographic consuming this content. In the US, 25% of TikTok users are aged 10 to 19, key developmental years when young people construct personal identities, philosophies and a sense of right and wrong. When their brains are flooded with claims that their gender does not fuel their bodies, they internalise that information and adhere to that expectation.
Young girls’ relationship with food is being fundamentally distorted by such trends. Some 27% of Australians with eating disorders are aged under 19, an increase of 12% since 2012.
Ultimately, the ‘girlhood’ trend masquerades as modern feminism while reinforcing reductive misogynistic stereotypes under the guise of connection. By trivialising financial irresponsibility and eating disorders, it perpetuates patriarchal views and influences young girls during their formative years. Genuine feminism has a duty to challenge these regressive trends to promote an authentic representation of womanhood.
© 2024 The Oxford School for the Future of Journalism