In 2023, the cultural zeitgeist can simply be described as: girl. Glorious, girly media is everywhere, from the Barbie logo on everything, to Olivia Rodrigo’s Twilight-infused new single, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour taking us all the way back to 2006, and even the FIFA Women’s World Cup bringing a very “yeah the girls!” vibe to TV screens. With the fun, intensity and kinship of girlhood surging through mainstream culture right now, we have an intriguing opportunity. Can we use this moment to reclaim girlhood, celebrate its importance and leverage it to achieve real forward progress?
Girl, not girl-boss
The current girly mood feels so exciting and relevant because of how distinct it is from the previous era of media-driven pop-feminism. The 2015 ‘girlboss’ years celebrated women’s ability to access power like a man, to find ambition and success on her own, in her own empowered, tough-chick way. By 2023 standards, it’s cringe stuff. On-the-nose empowering monologues, fight scenes or self-identifying ‘boss bitches’ still defined themselves in relation to what men would or would not do.
Instead, the latest Girl Movement is defined by things considered distinctly feminine like hyper-pop music, excess pink, and having a lot of feelings (regardless of whether they’re inspiring or not). It’s less perfect, more messy and childlike. It’s the “just a teenage girl in her 20s” trend on TikTok, the concept of ‘girl dinner’, and the romanticisation of messy bedrooms as scenes straight out of a Sofia Coppola film.
There is something so healing about adult women connecting to their teenage selves emotions, interests and, sometimes, incapabilities. Not because it gives them power, not because there is something to be gained, but just an unabashed veneration of girlhood for the sake of it.
An uncontrollable reality
But this triumphant return to girlhood has not been prompted by any major milestone in the status of women. In fact, women’s experiences are worsening across the board. Women’s rights are under attack globally – from Iran to Afghanistan to the United States. Australia’s domestic and gendered violence epidemic is not slowing down, with First Nations women targeted most of all. The gender pay gap persists, and even the climate crisis disproportionately impacts women and girls.
Are we regressing to the (relative) comfort of childhood to escape a reality that feels completely out of control? The same way that Barbie characters have a “a pink, glittery, existential dance party” in plastic Barbie-land while the real world rages on outside?
For many women childhood is also underwritten by shame. ‘Girl things’ have very little cultural capital. Our interests and obsessions are considered lesser and lurid compared to the more meaningful, ‘serious’ interests of middle-aged masculinity. Women are ridiculed, patronised and parodied for simply liking what they like.
Mainstream culture loves to fetishise young women’s strength and trauma – applauding the sacrifices of those like Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafazi – only to turn around and villainise their joy. This is especially true for Black, Indigenous, Middle Eastern and Asian girls, who are treated as young women too soon, robbed of their girlhood and burdened with the responsibility of ‘acting right’.
In the face of huge existential struggles, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that young women are returning to the feelings and favourites we felt forced to leave behind.
Girly things as political tools
But of course, nostalgic escapism doesn’t actually free us from political reality. The question is whether we can also use the resurgence of girly culture to make some real dents in the power structures. Accessing the wide-eyed wonder and warmth of childhood is a rare thing to experience in adulthood, and seeing the world through those eyes can be incredibly powerful (see also: reparenting the inner child).
We could use this as an opportunity to ‘redo’ the girlhood experience in a more expansive, inclusive way. Many women will tell you their child and teen years were defined by exclusion more than anything else. Some manifestations of the current Girl Moment are still too enraptured with wealth, whiteness, beauty and strict adherence to the gender binary. A glittery, existential dance party only few are invited to.
But there are also real efforts being made to open up who these trends and moments are for, inviting a much wider range of women to share their stories. Specific, unique details are what makes girlhood stories so relatable; exploring that common ground is what builds real solidarity. Making sure the microphone gets passed around will help this be more meaningful than just a passing, consumerist trend.
It’s also an opportunity to translate important political ideas that are normally gate-kept and delivered in ‘boring’ masculine formats. Nikita Redkar explains dense concepts like the U.S debt ceiling, the nuclear arms treaty, and socialist ideas like taxing the rich, in her “for the girls” style. She’s dressed up in hot pink, imparting knowledge with tones and terminology that sound like gossip.
Critics will say we shouldn’t have to ‘dumb down’ this information for women, but the packaging should not matter so long as we’re able to be well informed. The common language and storytelling of reclaimed girl culture is already being used for this. Insisting that women’s tools are silly undercuts how useful these are as political parables.
There is one sticky point of criticism though: girly trends do have a tendency to become consumerist. All trends do. The fun and the pink of it all is a convenient way for brands to sell us more stuff, and for women to define themselves temporarily by those purchases. Using this unifying moment for that would be such a waste, just to line the pockets of men who run the corporations that control what we buy.
The most powerful version of the Girl Moment is the one that allows us to heal ourselves, so that we have more energy to look outwards and help other people. It’s not consumerism; it’s curiosity, joyfulness, disregarding perfection, enthusiasm, empathy, passion, and it’s friendship.
Is the current girl culture movement executing these things perfectly right now? No. But that doesn’t mean it’s not salvageable either. What matters is embracing the feelings of unguarded hope and worthiness embedded within all these little girly trends, and using them to push society forward.
Smart people read more:
Teenage dream: these photos capture the chaos of girlhood – Dazed
The Pursuit of Beauty: A High Price for Faux-Empowerment
Why Soft Living On TikTok Isn’t Just a Trend – It’s An Act of Rebellion
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