In the past few years, in spite of the attempts of feminist movements, gender roles have become more and more cemented in our cultural mindset. A quick glance across history is all you need to understand that it has always been easy to get away with inciting and committing violence against women, but in the current political climate, far-right misogynists are gaining larger platforms. Their desire to put women back into their ‘inherent’ role of subservience ’ has been met with feminist outrage. However, many of the measures taken to protect women as a result of this outrage are half measures at best which lean unapologetically on the social structure of gendered expectations. This is clear in the laws that are being passed against transgender individuals (often specifically focused on trans women) and sporting controversies about if women deemed ‘too masculine’ have the right to be included in sport. All of this is done in the name of women’s safety, but all it does is polarise women against one another and restrict our freedoms. We appear to be regressing in recognising diversity in gender to the point we are failing to recognise basic human rights.
Sowing this doubt about who really counts as a woman is a disease which has its roots deep and twisting inside our favourite modern source of information: social media. TikTok trends have become increasingly gendered. Seemingly entertaining and relatable, they turn stereotypical ‘female’ activities, such as shopping and doing makeup, into a catchy phrase. ‘Girl Math’, ‘Girl Dinner’ and similar ‘Girl’ trends become the new joke, laid out for women to relate to. And they’re not supposed to be derogatory. On the contrary, they’re embraced by countless women worldwide, these new trends are hailed as a form of unity for feminists. As a society, it seems we are ‘reclaiming girlhood’. Surely this is exactly what modern feminism needs?
I’d argue not quite. Women have been denied autonomy on many pretences over the years, but ensuring that they exist only within the framework of femininity is an essential factor every time. On the surface, perhaps these trends don’t seem to play into this, perhaps they are merely harmless fun. Of course these women know they’re not really bad at maths just because of their gender. They’re just messing about, making fun of other people who think that. Perhaps that’s how it started – I’d like to think so.
It hasn’t stayed that way; these jokes now seem to be unironic: a video discussing “girl hobby” sincerely defines it as grabbing treats, shopping, skincare and makeup routines. They can’t seem to hear the implications in their words. I cannot reconcile myself to the idea that maths is an activity only useful or available to girls when in the context of traditionally ‘girly’ activities. How are you empowering women by forcing them into all the same categories they have been forced into for centuries? Rebranding gender roles in a new, funnier wrapper does not remove the oppression and exclusion within them. It has no power to do anything but drive a wedge between women everywhere who will never be able to live up to this ideal.
The example I personally find most insidious is the use of the No Doubt song ‘I’m just a girl’ as a backing track to videos about how women can’t help their foolish ways because they’re “just girls.” I've had friends use the phrase about themselves unironically, I’ve even had people say it about me, unironically, after I’ve spoken about something I’ve messed up. It seems the height of ignorance to enforce gender roles using a song written to condemn them, conveniently cutting off the lyric “I’m just a girl” right before the line “that’s all that you’ll let me be”.
There is no world in which I am the biggest fan of the platform, but I’ll admit I don’t find all TikTok feminist trends exclusionary and demeaning. Since I first became outraged at the concept of girl math around a year ago, there has been a shift in the trends I see. The recent trend of ‘#womeninmensfields’ particularly struck a chord with me, it’s the exact sort of feminist backlash at gender roles and how they enable men’s mistreatment of women which I was mourning the death of. The trend started as a way to call out men’s awful behaviour in relationships, for example responding to heartfelt messages or serious conversations with dismissive one word answers, but has since evolved to call out more general inequalities such as men putting women down by saying their job isn’t serious or real. It would be nice to think that this shift in what is trending means this can all be relegated to an internet debate, each trend just a social media fad without too many lasting consequences, contained within the digital walls of TikTok’s mythical algorithms.
Yet the social shift in how we challenge gender roles in recent years is undeniable. Perhaps these trends propelled it into existence, but I doubt it. More likely they arose as a consequence of changing opinion, then became a gateway into change in opinion themselves, and thus the cycle repeats… Slowly but surely, misinterpreted ironies backed up by faux feminist influencers, who care far more about turning a profit than they’ve ever cared about women’s rights, are painting over decades of feminist effort.
These gendered expectations women have fought against are not a relic of the past. As recently as the 1980s there was a four to one ratio of boys to girls taking A-level maths. I’ve heard the stories of countless women who were discouraged or simply stopped from pursuing STEM subjects because of their gender. Women have to work harder than men to make it into the fields of engineering, computer science or trading; all incidentally high paying jobs with social acclaim. Maintaining financial incompetence is an effective tool of oppression in itself; if you do not control your own money you are automatically dependent – so of course women ‘don’t have the brains’ to handle the stock market. Probably for the best if they can’t even budget properly for buying lattes and makeup, right? Whether one individual woman is good at maths, likes shopping, or is partial to any stereotypical feminine activity is arbitrary. The point is not to remove such traits, but to accept that women are not a monolith. They deserve the right to pursue whatever careers and hobbies they want, without either having to cling to or sacrifice femininity.
It’s not particularly surprising that society takes anything women or girls care about and makes it seem trivial, unworthy and simple. The ideal of femininity (gentleness, compliance, empathy, physical weakness) is not necessarily embodied in so-called ‘feminine’ activities, they have merely been dubbed that because women enjoy them. As a gymnast I’ve often had people tell me my sport isn’t a real sport. An odd claim, since it’s one of the most physically demanding sports out there, requiring an extraordinary level of mental resilience. It is also one of the only sports in the world where the women’s event is more popular than the male equivalent, and often is the default assumption in discussions. A similar argument could be made for ballet. Pointed toes and pretty spins hide a training regime which would make the military blush. Women’s hobbies become demeaning because women enjoy them, and thus only women enjoy them because it is demeaning to one’s masculinity to partake.
In my day-to-day life, I seem to encounter more and more people who think that men and women are fundamentally different, believing wholeheartedly that female and male brains are wired so opposingly as to be irreconcilable. It is perceived that an inherent mental factor separates us: the very mechanism that has facilitated the oppression of women across history. When I was younger, feminism was all about letting women do whatever they wanted. A woman could be just like a man in every way if she wanted to. It was not about elevating ‘girl’ things to the level of ‘boy’ things, but saying that the entire idea of ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ things was stupid in the first place. They were all just ‘things’, valued and enjoyed differently by different people, irrespective of gender. At the very least that was the message I clung to red-knuckled across my childhood. I feel that in today’s feminist landscape this way of thinking is a lost relic, left behind staring after a stampede of new yet regressive ideas.
There is a mass effort to reclaim femininity, but I have to wonder, what and who are we reclaiming it from? The ‘not-like-other-girls’ concept springs to mind, where both in fiction and reality girls who wanted to reject femininity were lumped under this label and dismissed as a harmful trope. These girls condemned other women, holding an air of superiority over their more feminine counterparts. As time progressed, this term just got replaced with ‘pick me girls’, who would put down other women in order to appeal to men. I’ve always found it strange that the blame for this behaviour seemed to fall on women. Perhaps they did perpetuate these beliefs, but simply because they were also teenage and insecure in a world pushing patriarchal values onto them. For some it may come from a place of wanting to distance yourself from things that are considered demeaning because they are enjoyed by women. For others it is simply because they feel that they have already been ‘othered’ and excluded by their peers, so their bubbling resentment manifests itself in a superiority that distances them further.
Whatever the reason, the cause lies in the overall structure which forces girls to stick down one steady path from a young age. You can’t be too feminine, because that’s garish and unseemly. Too much makeup will repel men. But don’t get caught with too little, then you just look plain. It must be natural, it must seem effortless – but make no mistake, it will take all of your effort. Don’t be too loud, because it might be mistaken for assertiveness, or worse, dominance. But if you’re too quiet, too shy, you’ll never make it anywhere at all, no one will ever look at you. You must remain poised, sexless, innocent, perfectly corruptible, but most of all you remain desirable. Striving for this ideal, for perfection, will consume you body and soul. No one woman will ever feel like she is the right kind of woman, because the right kind of woman is a fictionalised ideal that does not exist. There is no need to reclaim the right to be a feminine woman, because there was never the right to be any other kind of woman, merely the demand that a perfect balance is struck.
This desperate desire to become the perfect woman is exploited time and time again by the corporations that attempt to dictate our decisions. Every time I scroll through Instagram, I am bombarded with adverts for razors I do not want. ‘This is how you get the perfect shave!’ flashes up on my screen, next to over stylised pictures of women who look as if no hair has ever grown where they don’t wish it to. They’re followed by adverts for a lipstick that promises to give me the ‘perfect new look’. They’re designed to suck you in – you think you don’t want them, but perhaps you need them. These expensive items are thrust in our faces on screens everyday. The beautiful woman doing her makeup on TikTok tells you to buy hundreds of pounds worth of products while she stares out of the screen like a renaissance painting. It makes you want to, because you want to look like that as effortlessly as she seems to, but you know that three pound superdrug eyeliner will never give you the same finesse she has.
It feels good to have expensive things, because it makes you feel like you’re achieving something. With money, you too can achieve womanhood, and it is certainly something to be achieved. Gender performance often feels mandatory in our society, yet the keys are held just out of reach for so many. The act of reclaiming femininity while rejecting male validation has the potential to transgress gender roles, however many who champion themselves as doing this are not only complying with a degrading and distorted view of womanhood themselves, they are actively driving a wedge between gender non-conforming women and their right to their own womanhood. Attempts across the world to subjugate women first attempt to confine them to a box, be that in law or social expectation. Without casting aside the box, there is no lasting, impactful way to combat misogyny. Considering ‘being a girl’ inherently about pink bows and charming naivety, is merely that misogyny repackaged as feminism.
