It would be a lie to say that society has not improved from the past days of keeping women in the kitchen, disenfranchised. There have been large strides for the rights of women and men alike — and everyone who identifies otherwise — to express themselves more freely in the society we share.
Policemen are now referred to as police officers. Gendered terms like “seamstress” or “actress” are slowly fading out of our vocabulary. Previously popular rhetorics like “good girls are quiet” or “boys should not cry” are rapidly disappearing. The internet, however, is another story.
A popular TikTok trend with more than 415.9 million views, “girl math,” refers to silly, illogical calculations that are often used to justify spending. “Any purchase under $5 is free,” a viral video argues under “#girlmath.” The absurd quality this trend assigns to the word “girl” is a huge step away from the negativity the word “girl” implied — “#girlmath” is not an isolated phenomenon either. There is a whole influx of “girl” trends that attribute absurdity and carefreeness to the world of “girl,” reclaiming the word from its previously negative connotations. However, instead of shrouding the word with a new silly definition to replace the previous misogyny, we should instead aspire to neutralize the implications “girl” comes with because the fixed definition may not fit everyone who identifies with the word.
Where did these new “girl” trends come from, then? The new “girl” trends are a net-positive compromise in the ruins of a backfired empowerment catchphrase. Although meant to be empowering, the notorious millennial term “girl boss” has layered condescension and infantilization over the word “girl.” By calling successful, grown women “girls,” and not what they deserve to be called — “women” — the “girl boss” trend was equivalent to the misogynistic phenomenon of a male superior addressing a female staff member as a “little lady.” However, thanks to the internet, the word has been successfully reclaimed. Now the word “girl” has taken on a more positive, truly empowering connotation compared to the misogynistic overtone the word has suffered through in history.
The new positive connotations, unfortunately, still lead to negative impacts. Of course, having a positive connotation is objectively much better than having a negative one. However, once there is a charged connotation, even a positive implication can portray a harmful one-note story. A good parallel would be the common stereotype that “Asians are good at math.” Sure, it sounds great at first glance, but the unfair pressure on the community and dismissal of hard work is crippling to the younger generations of Asians. Such seemingly positive framing has diverted the necessary attention from urgent issues like structural inequalities, as the popular stereotype of success casts a shadow over Asians who are of a lower socioeconomic status. The positive attribute associated with the word “Asian” unintentionally created a definition that some people who identify with the word itself cannot relate to.
So, what about a neutral connotation? For centuries, the word “men” has held a meaning much closer to neutrality because it was equated to humanity as a whole. Humanity has always possessed multitudes of negativity and positivity, and therefore, the word “men” has been somewhat neutralized in the process of taking on all of them. “Women,” or “girls,” on the other hand, have been characterized in all kinds of horrible ways, including being called witches for having a flair of personality and being inherently weaker than men. Sure, it is a huge improvement to be characterized as silly compared to all the terrible precedents, but we should strive to achieve neutrality.
Neutrality is better than positivity because it can encompass any personal definition of the word. While positive connotations restrict the meaning of the word “girl,” the lack of connotations, or neutrality, allows people to assign their own meanings. Especially for a word like “girl,” an integral part of many identities, it is paramount that people have free reign to develop their own personal connection with the word. Once there is even a silhouette of a cookie-cutter definition associated with the word “girl,” regardless of whether it is positive or not, a constant need for assessment follows. For instance, the rising body neutrality movement takes away the pressure to feel good about our bodies, providing leeway for people to observe their relationship with their body and their body image. In this case, the need to love one’s body restricted how people viewed their bodies, forcing a standardization of an extremely personal piece of identity. Similar to the body positivity movement, the Internet’s reclamation of the word “girl” gave the word a positive connotation — a pleasant carefree attitude towards the complexity of life — along with an implicit set of rules girls need to follow. Neutralizing the word “girl” will scrape the layers of misogyny and pressure it has accumulated over the centuries. It will finally make some room for people to foster a personal definition that fits them.
There is no such thing as a good gender stereotype. Consistent exposure to these new “girl” trends, which often depict girls being absurd, restrictive, or irresponsible, could easily result in reinforced gender norms, even if we don’t realize it now.
So, it’s time to move past gender stereotypes, once and for all — and not just on the internet. On campus, we should strive to move away from gendered phrasings. Before you use a term that involves the words “girl,” “boy,” “man,” “woman,” or something equivalent, pause for a moment to evaluate what kind of connotation your statement will assign to the word. See whether what you were about to say assigns a positive, negative, or neutral charge to the word.
