because the moment you start calling yourself girl instead of woman, you shrink yourself. you signal softness, harmlessness, non-threat. you make yourself safe for consumption again. “girl” is easier to market, easier to infantilize, easier to dismiss. “girl” can giggle through exploitation and call it lifestyle content. “girl” can cry on camera and still be desirable. “woman” demands to be taken seriously, and that’s never been profitable 😐
and not to mention the gendering of it all. every trend, every meme, every “girl ___” slogan re-etches the same fucking old lines we claimed to have erased or tried so fucking hard to anyway. suddenly everything has a gender again, dinners, math (?!), drinks, breakdowns (?!). everything coded pink or blue, delicate or stoic, soft or rational 😒 “girl math” vs “boy math.” “girl dinner” vs “man meal.” it’s parody that's not a fucking parody anymore, it’s regression covered w glitter & pink as if thats revolutionary
the irony is how the language of empowerment got hijacked into another sales pitch. “girlboss” wasn’t liberation (IT WAS NEVER LIBERATION BTW!!) it's capitalism beautified to perpetuate the pressure of maintaining men's aesthetic appeal despite it all to women. “girl math” turns financial precarity into a meme instead of a crisis that it fucking is. did you know women couldn't open their own bank accounts till 1974. that is not that fucking long ago, stop talking abt quitting & marrying rich & what are taxes anyway haha #girlmath and get some financial literary and make your own fucking money. “girl dinner” turns exhaustion into aesthetic minimalism, not to mention yet again women taking up less space, less food, less resources. everything becomes irony until there’s nothing left to critique..
it’s insidious because it feels harmless. because it’s funny..or so you think it is. because it gives the illusion of choice haha “i know it’s regressive, but i’m in on the joke.” but the joke always ends with women smaller, quieter, cuter, easier to sell so idk I'm not fucking laughing??
the language itself is doing the work patriarchy used to outsource to institutions. it’s keeping women small through syntax, teaching them to identify through cuteness instead of complexity. to rebrand fatigue as relatability, to turn survival into content for other women to blindly follow & also ultimately, as with all things now apparently, For Men!
and the men love it!!1!! because every “girl” slogan is one less Womanndemanding accountability, one less threat, every “girl dinner” is proof the culture still expects women to starve prettily. emotionally, intellectually, literally!! every “girl math” reminds them that women are supposed to laugh at their own dispossession & laugh off lack of skill or knowledge instead of reforming and being self-sufficient
it’s terrifying how quickly language drags us backward. how fast girl power became girl failure but make it cute!! how feminism got declawed, branded, and sold back as “self-awareness” literally fuck you. mistaking irony for rebellion slowly rewriting OURSELVES back into caricatures
infantilization is NOT empowerment. irony should NOT disguise surrender. language should NOT turn you into a costume, it should be a force you use appropriately and with extreme caution. you are not a girl you're a fucking woman. act accordingly.
turnnoffyourmind
jbbartram-illu
tangentwithtanner
gummygunk
origamiaround
stormborns
