The dichotomous politics of TikTok “girlhood”

Dissecting the exclusionary social media term that hopes to cast a wide net

(Image by vinsky2002 via Pixabay)

In a society where language took ages to form, it now takes one TikTok for everyone to adopt a new word or phrase. The construction of today’s vernacular happens largely online, with words gaining new meanings at speeds only possible in the virtual world. This new terminology, almost use and throw in nature, can be powerful in shaping global perspectives and creating social movements. 

Just think of the way terms like girlboss, babygirl and it-girl have come to denote a specific archetype we all understand because of social media. These definitions fall under the umbrella of girlhood, a term first used in the mid-1700s by the author Samuel Richardson. In between childhood and womanhood, girlhood denotes specific aspects of the female identity and experience, as understood in heteronormative society.

On social media, girlhood has come to represent the wildness of coming into one’s own as a woman. It encompasses several aspects, including the closed solidarity of female friendships, the unspoken code between women, and the liberation of individual choice. Visual representations of girlhood on platforms like TikTok and Pinterest depict a strict aesthetic—a type of beauty that is pleasing because it fits a theme. However, in tandem with the feminist movement's nuanced understanding of this lived experience, girlhood is inherently dichotomous. 

Here’s how: TikTok rejects the pick-me girl, a term coined for women who strive for male validation and betray their own female allies in the process. But it invites concepts like girl-dinner and girl-math—which both represent women as primitively unintelligent. 

TikTok’s hot girl walk focuses on mindfulness and mental health, but evokes the patriarchal version of “hotness.” Hot girl summer is meant to celebrate growth, fun and enjoying life to the fullest. 

In other words, girlhood is self-indulgent. It indulges conventional forms of femininity, portraying it as precarious and inherently incomplete without external validation. But girlhood is also a way to invite uniqueness and acceptance. Its presence on social media, where everything can find its audience, provides the opportunity to adopt a more democratic meaning. 

It has been a long and laborious fight for feminists to achieve basic rights, opportunities and representation for women. On TikTok, it seems that all of it has culminated into this post-feminist depiction of girlhood. For the first time in history, the feminine consciousness has the potential to unshackle itself from patriarchal restrictions and freely exist as it does amongst women. We can all be just girls—as we are around sisters, moms and best friends. We do not have to perform for the male gaze. We finally have permission to live freely as we are. 

It is because of this permission that girlhood’s liberation begins to reveal itself as what it really is: an evolved form of external validation. One that bends to the rules of the algorithm, making socially acceptable only concepts that have the “aesthetic” of something that would garner likes and comments. 

When being a girl is acceptable

Representing a whole experience with a single word creates exclusion. Social media terms can fall short in shaping modern communication. While the giddy and frivolous aspects of girlhood wouldn’t have been celebrated in a 1960s magazine (when the suffrage movement was only just securing Black women the right to vote in North America), today, that celebration reduces the feminine experience to an archetype. 

In its association with conventional femininity, girlhood becomes acceptable only when it appeases the male gaze. The face masks, nail extensions, fresh blowouts, endless shopping hauls—presented as choices that liberate women—instead raise the beauty standard. Disguising patriarchal restrictions as “self-care,” traps women in a culture that constantly places them under surveillance. 

Author Naomi Wolf deduced that progress has stalled as women feel dejected after fighting for so long with so little to show for it. Even at a time when women have more rights and freedoms than ever, current beauty standards are unattainable. According to Wolf, the patriarchy has taken over in a more insidious way, creating a “dark vein of self-hatred, physical obsessions, terror of aging, and dread of lost control” - even amongst successful women.

The symbols of TikTok girlhood—Sylvia Plath’s poignantly heartbreaking fig tree, Princess Diana’s classic revenge dress, Audrey Hepburn’s sultry pout over her cigarette, the blue hair and ripped leggings of Tumblr girls—are multifaceted, but still not intersectional.

Fourth-wave feminism was born out of a need to include all identities historically and systematically oppressed by the patriarchy. It broke the mould with which we defined gender, placing us into a fight against the congruent structures of race, class and ultimately, power. In its wake, a lot of feminists have been accused of being too radical. This has created branches of the feminist movement that defy parts of the patriarchy while still complying with capitalist power structures.

Feminist choices do not exist in a vacuum 

Created in retaliation to “radical” feminist practices, choice feminism pretends to challenge the status quo in isolation. In her paper “Choice Feminism and the Fear of Politics”, scholar Michaele L. Ferguson says that choice feminists argue that “it is definitionally impossible for a woman to choose her own oppression; all choices she makes are equally expressions of her freedom, and therefore equally to be supported.” 

The feminist movement has never been about a single voice. It is a collective of voices, not all of which have been equal. Today’s feminists recognize that a white woman’s liberation is different from a Black woman’s; the hierarchy of social power governs our freedom—who gets more chances and can take bigger risks.

In her TED Talk “The Urgency of Intersectionality”, civil rights advocate Kimberlé Crenshaw calls for the need to recognize the double discrimination of gender and race that women of colour face. The intersection of these “social dynamics come together and create challenges that are sometimes quite unique.” 

The feminist fight does not have a sole opponent. One cannot dissent against the patriarchy without also rejecting the capitalist structures of race, class economy and waged labour that hold it in place.

Ambitiously intended to represent women’s authentic lived experiences, girlhood has become exclusionary in nature because it pretends that we live in a post-feminist society where the goals of feminism have already been achieved. It allows one to make fun of the frivolousness of femininity, which results in dressing up misogyny with frilly bows and skin-tight yoga pants.

On a platform that commodifies our attention, every new term becomes part of a marketplace. And girlhood is no different. We may individually recognize it as the meaningful experiences that have shaped our journeys into women, but its dominant meaning in society is dictated by a platform that turns it into a product.

What girlhood means to me

Girlhood is not perfect beauty or unmarred godliness. It is not fancy or expensive or painstakingly curated in a salon for hours. It is not glossy nail extensions, a pink pilates mat or a pair of branded sunglasses made at the expense of children in factories. It is not envy. It is not putting anyone down. It is not a zero-sum game. And it is not, by any means, a mould to fit into. 

The media has shaped our perceptions of girlhood by distorting the female image. But girlhood's true meaning—and power—lies in our relationships with each other. 

To me, girlhood is love, respect, kindness and friendship. Girlhood is looking at  your mom in awe as a child, searching for her beauty in everything you see and sometimes creating that beauty in an effort to keep her close. Girlhood is the unspoken promise we hold towards each other: to follow each other into washrooms, to hold each other accountable, to celebrate each other’s uniqueness. 

At its core, girlhood is political. It is about accepting authenticity, even when (or especially when) it is not hegemonic – when it defies rigid systems of power. 

We call it girlhood, but really, it is the same feminism for which blood has been shed, and the throats of countless women before us have been slit. To continue fighting for everyone who identifies as a woman, we must remember that girlhood does not live on TikTok. It lives in the liberation and freedom of all women.