If you’ve used TikTok, there is little doubt that you have encountered the term ‘girl maths’, a ditzy justification to spending money and making mental jumps to justify that which us ‘girls’ cannot afford. As the trend of ‘girl maths’ grew and subsequently developed the concept of ‘girl money’ a quickly expanding barrier was placed between women and their money or financial assets, dethatching them from it in a means to justify more and more overspending. It projects a pervasive narrative that most women have grown up absorbing their entire lives – that as women, we are not as good with our money as our male counterparts and sends a message that we are frivolous with our spending and incapable of making wise financial decisions. Whilst at the surface, this is no more harmful than the latest dance trend, it is a moment that summarises the past ten years of media and its utilisation and commodification of the word ‘girl’. Are these TikTok’s something I have laughed at and related to? Totally. But what initially started as a self-deprecating and light-hearted joke has spiralled across the internet and become something much more notable.
2023 was certainly the year of micro-trends headlined with the word ‘girl’. Whether people are talking about their ‘girl dinners’, amounting to thrown together meals of leftovers and the items found at the back of your fridge, ‘hot girl walks’, walking, or their ‘feral girl summers’, or rebranding themselves to a ‘clean girl’, ‘girl boss’ or ‘rotten girl’, there is very little space left on the internet to be a woman consisting of a self-decided mix of traits, or, even if you think you have managed to become one, there is little time left before it will all be mashed into a commodified, predictable and titled template for you to inhabit. And make no mistake, regardless of your age, it will contain the word girl.
The cruciality of “girl dinner” and the term “girl” over all is fun and unrestrictive.
There is very little room to be a woman on the internet anymore. A scraped together meal cannot be a ‘woman dinner’ because the word woman comes with an expectation that the dinner must be thought out, nutritious and in many ways, boring. A ‘hot woman walk’ is just a walk and a ‘feral woman summer’ a sign you need to mature and get your life together. Robin Wasserman writes that narratives about “girls” forget the age of the female characters and instead concern themselves with their societal milestones. A woman’s story begins after her transition from girlhood, “from being someone to being someone’s wife, to someone’s mother.” It is not her age that defines her as a woman but whom she belongs to. A woman of the same age may be deemed a “girl” if the trajectory of her narrative is not as followed. Therefore, if the absence of a spouse or child is the condition of being a girl, it is simple to understand why so many modern women are referring to themselves as girls. It places a distance between them and a traditional sense of female ‘sensibility’ and constriction. The image of a “woman dinner” seems sad, indicating a tired woman sitting alone having fed her husband and children, savouring any scraps discarded by those who grant her her womanhood. There is no room left for her to exist as an individual being and is thus undesirable to modern woman who don’t desire to only serve those around them. The cruciality of “girl dinner” and the term “girl” over all is fun and unrestrictive.
Whilst the current trends we can track on TikTok are some of the prime examples, the internet is no stranger to the fanatical craze surrounding girlhood. We have seen it time and time again generate interest, and more notably, marketing value. Around 2015 we saw an audience grapple to the likes of Gillian Flynn’s ‘Gone Girl’ (2012), Stieg Larsson’s ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ and Paula Hawkins’s ‘The Girl on The Train’. Revealed in their titles, all interest themselves with women, or should I say ‘girls’, who have dethatched themselves or been dethatched from the traditional values of what it means to be a woman and thus be stripped of their womanhood. These characters exhibit values that resonate with many modern-day women and thus explains our modern attachment and inclination to align ourselves with the term girl.
Women seem to always owe society something, even when it treats them poorly, whereas ‘girls’ are free from society to be free and have fun.
The women who dominate the content creation industry are not ignorant to this history and know exactly what they’re doing when they dub everyday activities as “hot girl” or “messy girl”. By now these trends are notorious for going viral and as long as our association with girlhood doesn’t dwindle, will continue to do so and therefore, the term girl will continue to be a commodity. Additionally, in a year that has been marked by women striving to define themselves beyond what history and society has taught them to, it is no surprise that the rejection laced within the world girl has had such phenomenal success.
There is a freedom in defining yourself as a girl. Women seem to always owe society something, even when it treats them poorly, whereas ‘girls’ are free from society to be free and have fun.
In other words, whilst the language we use on social media such as TikTok is without a doubt humorous, relatable, and enjoyable, it reflects a cyclical trend of the conflicts between girlhood and womanhood. Language has, throughout history, been a tool used to dehumanise woman and today we see it making them fearful of their womanhood. It strays women away from progressing into their womanhood from fear of losing what makes them fun when ultimately, it is a tactical marketing ploy. “Girl” sells, and “woman” does not and there is no sign that this cycle will change anytime soon.