I’m done with girl math.
Girl math, before it was adopted as an all encompassing way of life, was simply a way to rationalize spending habits. The most common example being that if you buy something that is on sale, you have saved, or even made, money.
Over the past year or so, this trend has gained a lot of attention on the internet, primarily on TikTok, since then it has spread to a wide range of things including “girl driving,” and “girl economics.” Over time this light-hearted trend changed from something that poked fun at the way that teenage girls view spending money or sharing with their friends, turning into something more condescending than anything else. In the beginning, it was a harmless way to joke among friends, but it’s been taken too far and has perpetuated harmful stereotypes toward women. I understand that it’s a joke and I did find it funny at first, but the more I see it, the more it makes me think about how women view themselves and how they have been trained to perceive themselves within the patriarchy.
The way you present yourself to the world is crucial and when you spend every day exclaiming, “Oh, I’m just a girl,” when you fail at something there is an underlying message that is saying “It is inherently girly to do things that are irrational or stupid or to make mistakes.” Studies have shown that simply making a conscious effort to curb thoughts of self hatred makes a significant difference in how happy you are. People may say that I’m reading too much into this, but I truly believe that if this trend continues to escalate in the way that it has, it could have a similar effect when people think negatively about themselves all the time.
From this trend the term “I’m just a girl,” has also become increasingly popular which to me promotes an idea that one shouldn’t have to be responsible for their own actions. For years the term “boys will be boys” has been picked apart, rightfully so, for the way that it portrays men as being children who don’t know any better when doing things that are wrong. “I’m just a girl” promotes this idea in a similar way where no one is actively being harmed, and is allowing young women to believe that they don’t need to learn to take care of themselves or be responsible in any way.
Sometimes when I see these videos explaining economics in terms of fashion, shopping or little treats, it just makes me wonder how much of this is for the views. This becomes even more concerning when you remember that these internet trends are seen and adopted by children who are more susceptible to conforming to the actions of others. It’s becoming harder to tell if people truly think girls are stupid. I recently saw a video called “Girl Politics,” in which the creator explained the election season in terms of reality TV and honestly, I felt a little insulted.
At first I was an avid enjoyer of this content, as myself and my friends joked about how everything was “girl economics.” One of us would pay for dinner or gas knowing that through “girl economics,” it would all balance out one day, but it’s gotten to a point now where it seems like the perpetrators of “girl economics,” “girl driving,” “girl math,” “girl work,” “girl dinner,” and girl everything seem to be putting themselves down in a way that I don’t agree with. It seems less and less like a joke and more and more like these young women do truly believe that they are stupid.
