‘Girl math’, following in the footsteps of the ‘girl dinner’ trend, has become a new way of expressing the logic around ‘girl’ purchases. What started as a few TikToks and comments discussing the different ways people internally justify their small purchases has since snowballed into wider discussions around financial literacy and stereotypes about women’s frivolous spending.
Some examples of girl math include spending £20 extra to get free delivery, paying in cash means it’s free, getting a refund counts as earning money, and buying tickets in advance means it’s basically free once you get there. Many of these could just be ways of relieving a little bit of the stress around small purchases, in a time where finances are increasingly a worry for a lot of people. Though, to an extent, the girl math trend also plays into the rampant consumerism on TikTok where, in a few videos, girls flex large hauls from shopping trips, explaining the girl math behind each purchase. Most girl-math videos, though, are concerned with much smaller transactions, where this light-hearted mindset is fitting.
Another issue, though, is that the ‘girl-[blank]’ trends sit uncomfortably with many people. The ‘girl-dinner’ trend, for example, began as people showing their mismatched, snack board style meals, but soon turned into exhibiting ever lessening portions of food, making the trend morph from something fun and entertaining to something concerning and symptomatic of the wider tendency to infantilise women and exhibit disordered eating. ‘Girl math’, at times, carries a similar tendency to infantilise: ‘girl’ inherently signals to youth, teenagers rather than women, though it is largely women in their twenties that are making these TikToks. This seems to highlight the incorrect stereotype that women have a juvenile understanding of finances, but it is not as straightforwardly negative as that. The fact that these videos and comments are being made by women about themselves, not mocking other women and not men mocking women, shows that this is instead a way of reclaiming the negative stereotypes.
By poking fun at ourselves, and ‘girl mathing’ our way into buying the occasional treat, we can be both self-aware of the fact that cash is not actually free money, while also recognising that these little purchases do not need to be stressed over. Suggesting that women have poor financial literacy because of their use of ‘girl math’ is just as bizarre and patronising as suggesting millennials could buy houses if they ate fewer avocados. We know that ‘girl math’ isn’t directly logical, but shying away from making jokes about our own experiences for fear that it could be misconstrued as genuine financial illiteracy is pointless- if girl math is seen as proof of poor financial management, it is likely because people were looking for confirmation of the misogynistic beliefs they already held.
It’s understandable that the connotations of ‘girl math’ can be concerning to the many women who have fought to be taken seriously, though it is not the women who use girl math that are the enemy. As long as there is an element of self-awareness when posting about ‘girl math’, the stereotypes about women’s financial literacy are satirised, not reinforced. Undoubtedly, there are a few TikToks that miss the point, though, and affirm the consumerist mindset and ‘shopaholic’ stereotypes. Maybe the creators of these videos could consider more closely the stereotypes they are reinforcing about themselves, and women as a whole, but ultimately it is the wider patriarchal ideas about women’s financial literacy, and not individual women making jokes, that is the issue.