Reflecting on Girlhood: Progressive or Regressive?

In recent pop culture, we have seen the rise of teens and women embracing girlhood and the aesthetics of their childhoods. The recent fashion trends have been filled with bows, baby pink, ballet core, and sequins. As a society, we have shifted from the mentality of “not wanting to be like other girls” to wanting to be like our younger selves. Personally, as a young teen I had the mindset of not wanting to embrace the color pink because I didn’t want to be seen as “too girly” and thought that it would somehow make me less than to act my age and embrace looking girly. 

As I got older, it was easier to accept my love of all things girly, in part because of developed confidence and a greater sense of my own identity, but also because pop culture had completed the same shift into embracing femininity. With the rise of TikTok and an emphasis on aesthetics, it is easier now for women to make their younger selves proud with bows, baby pink, and ballet flats. Suddenly women and girls are able to embrace the things they resisted growing up, and collectively women have started to embrace girlhood. Along with this acceptance of girlhood in the zeitgeist, other “girl” trends were popularized on TikTok. 

Although the girlhood trend peaked in 2023, I wanted to reflect back on the trends that still have a chokehold on some corners of the internet; girlhood trends have been ever-changing and evolving since then. Some of those “girl” trends have been healing, while others have been more problematic. While these trends seem to be all in good fun, trends and memes are things that help people shape their opinions and mindsets around society. They can unintentionally be shaping a bias or just infantilizing women for the sake of a joke. 

Two of the most popular trends to emerge were girl dinner and girl math. Girl dinner started as a harmless trend to show unique food pairings and quirky snacks, but it devolved into validation for starving yourself or not eating enough. Some variations of the trend include empty plates, Diet Coke, coffee, or vaping. We have come so far in body positivity and image, but I can’t help but feel this trend is normalizing unhealthy relationships with food, which many young women are constantly struggling with. 

Similarly, Girl math was coined on TikTok by videos of young women explaining financial situations that are either bad choices or simply don’t make sense. A popular use of this term is people saying that if you pay with cash, it doesn’t count because you don’t see it leave your bank account. This in itself could be harmless, but typically the videos are women explaining their girl math to men. It reinforces stereotypes like women are addicted to shopping or not good at managing money, which we have been fighting back against for generations. The joke has evolved and now the underlying messaging is “I’m just a girl and can’t do math” and videos of girls justifying poor financial decisions. Those trends evolved into something different from the girlhood trends because where girlhood is honoring your younger self and about the expression of femininity, girl math and dinner are less positive. 

I know these trends are meant to be light and silly, but they truly can be a disservice to women as they perpetuate outdated stereotypes. Things can be both light-hearted and problematic at the same time, depending on how they are used. The videos can absolutely be positive if used in a way to reclaim stereotypes, but in many cases, there are deeper implications that are harmful. I’m not trying to argue that people go to TikTok to consume thoughtful progressive content about women’s empowerment. We need to be more aware of how these viral trends can influence public opinion and reinforce harmful stereotypes.  

• girlhood
• social media
• tiktok