Why I Hate "Girl Math" with a Passion - and Why You Should Too
Equating femininity with incompetence is not and will never be feminist nor progressive in any way, shape or form.
Around mid-October of this year, in the early stages of the media virality of the ongoing ethnic cleansing occurring in Palestine, a social media user by the name of @nikitadumptruck responded to a comment saying “bestie can you girlsplain the Israeli war pls” with a short-form video which gave feminine names to the countries of Israel and Palestine, then proceeded to depict each of these respective countries as girls going to the club, as a means of poorly and inaccurately elucidating a history of colonialism, genocide, and generational trauma. The video, which has since been taken down, began, in a high-pitched, cartoonishly girly voice, “buckle up girlypops”, and included the phrase “we are all put on this earth simply to vibe”.
The user in question, Nikita, calls herself a “professor at bimbo university” and has formed a brand off of dressing up in bright pink, stereotypically girlish clothes while explaining modern political issues “for the girls” - that is to say, in a manner that severely dumbs down the content and implications of severe political strife by comparing it to drama between girlfriends. To understand Nikita’s brand, let’s look at a highly popular figure in today’s online social media circus, Chrissy Chlapecka. It could be said that Chrissy is a pioneer of the relatively new viral concept of ‘bimbo feminism’, a popular performance in liberal feminist circles which revolves around the construction of a ditzy, hyper-feminine female character - a reclamation of stereotypes, if you will. Chrissy’s content weaves a deeply similar conceptual tapestry as Nikita’s, branding herself as a dumb, hot, blonde woman who talks in an artificially high-pitched voice complete with vocal fry, doesn’t know how to do math, and responds to sentences containing the word ‘gentrification’ with comments such as “smooth brain”. Through forming an entire following, fanbase, and market off of her ‘hot and stupid’ act, Chrissy has essentially dissolved any remainder of the non-actor remaining beneath the mask that is her bimbo self. Her entire personality as a female figure in the public eye revolves around her plastic-y, ditzy, hyper-feminine nature. Public figures such as Chrissy and Nikita create an appealing and seemingly well-meaning brand off of feminized incompetence, but a closer look - or in Nikita’s case, a look at all - will easily reveal the sinister implications of this performance.
Firstly, let’s look at the reality of the situation. Equating hyper-femininity with incompetence is not and will never be feminist nor progressive in any way, shape or form. It does not matter if it has been branded as ‘performance’ or ‘reclamation’. The fact of the matter is that in performing incompetence within the costume of stereotypical hyper-femininity, creators are in fact feeding directly into the hands of the patriarchal cultural standards that trap women in the exact positions of incompetence they claim are a choice. The bimbo feminist’s habits of overconsumption, concerns about attractiveness, and her woes of wardrobe, hair and makeup, have in actuality long been marketed to us by a patriarchal capitalist system in order to keep women over-concerned with their appearance and under-concerned with this system which aims to oppress and dehumanize us. Most content creators who proudly claim the ‘bimbo’ label tend to believe they are subverting, reclaiming, or even weaponizing some aspect of their stereotypical feminine interests. The harsh truth is that there is no power in acting precisely in the way that men - and a great deal of patriarchal society as a whole - already inherently perceive us as women. There is no subversion, no wool being pulled over anyone’s eyes. Our media feeds are chock-full of women conforming to standards of femininity - women with full faces of makeup amidst a zombie apocalypse, brands telling us to shave our pits in the name of feminism, et cetera. To perform hyperfemininity further is about the least countercultural thing one could do at a moment like this.
That’s not even to mention the fact that equating stupidity with hyperfemininity is pretty damn anti-feminist, in an incredibly basic and blatant way. Firstly, it’s a take-down to all of the highly intelligent, highly capable women trying to make a name for themselves. I mean, has Legally Blonde taught us nothing? There are droves of incredibly intelligent women (particularly femme-presenting women) who are discriminated against and discounted in their fields for no reason other than the cultural attachment of femininity to cluelessness. Secondly, we should not be praising our own incompetence as women at all - for reasons I hope I don’t have to elucidate. Why are we suddenly finding pride in such incredibly regressive and blatantly false understandings of the female nature? When did it become progressive to be incapable and uneducated, just as the patriarchy believes and wants us to be? Women like Nikita and Chrissy are fuel to this misogynistic fire. By presenting femininity as something inherently ditzy and clueless, these women in fact reinforce the patriarchal concepts that hold women back in the workforce and in society at large. All the while, they have the luck of feeding into a consumer base that reaffirms their projects as feminist gold mines. Thus, we get a highly disturbing feedback loop where any criticism towards ‘bimbotok’ or ‘girl math’ can be reinterpreted and rejected as some sort of anti-feminist, misogynistic stance.
We can see a very similar process occurring with artists such as Taylor Swift, who are well-known for weaponizing feminism to refute any criticism that flies their way. Taylor Swift has attracted criticism for good reason, including her immense carbon footprint due to large-scale tours and her highly questionable dating history. Following this criticism, we have seen a rise in women online saying “If you hate Taylor Swift, you’re simply not a girl’s girl.” The concept of the ‘girl’s girl’, which is deeply tied to the wave of ‘feminist’ actors who have a chokehold on the online microphone right now, is again being weaponized as a means of silencing criticism against women who are deserving of scrutiny. Rather than genuinely being a girl who supports and uplifts other girls (good!), a girl’s girl is now a girl who must blindly concede to all women, regardless of wrongdoing, lest they be seen as someone who hates on femininity senselessly. Note that the more sinister implication (and it’s not always just an implication!) here is that Taylor Swift, a rich, white, thin feminine woman, is the pinnacle of womanhood.
The idea that girls aren’t ‘girl’s girls’ or ‘one of the girls’ if they dare to dislike mediocre mainstream pop - or question the intentions of the woman behind the project - is highly problematic. To equate the interrogation of ridiculously rich and famous women with an anti-feminist perspective has dire implications for a handful of reasons. Not only does this detract attention from a hyper-misogynistic culture that desperately needs our attention, it also shuts down highly legitimate inquiries into the behavior of those with social, cultural and material power - all in the name of feminism. I recently saw scrutiny of Taylor Swift volleyed with “well, no one talks this way about male billionaires” - which simply isn’t true at all. Our media feeds are now seeing a rise in girls who claim to be ‘for the girls’ weaponizing feminism as a means of justifying their favorite celebrity’s poor behavior. This rhetoric also frames these famous women, who are privileged in myriad ways, as the center of the female experience, thus sidelining (for example) working-class women, women of color, and trans women - all of whom, generally speaking, have been foundational pillars for cultural and political progress within the female collective for decades if not longer. In a way, bimbo feminism dehumanizes women all over again, making us as one-dimensional and fixed as our patriarchal enemies believe us to be. Only this time, instead of being irreparably clueless, feminine women become parasocially revered idols who are above any and all intelligent criticism… and they also get to remain irreparably clueless, just for a cherry on top.
Essentially, bimbo feminism frames the hyper-feminine woman (who is generally thin and white, to boot), as the pinnacle of womanhood. This hyper-feminism is rooted in colonial conceptions of binary gender, and as such is a spit in the face to any and every gender non-conforming individual, particularly masculine queer women, as well as non-white women, regardless of whether or not they are actively choosing gender-nonconformity. Centering femininity in ‘feminist’ conceptions of womanhood actually ends up de-centering the voices of those most frequently sidelined by both mainstream feminist projects as well as the patriarchal cultures they claim to dismantle in the first place. It’s regressive at best - at worst, rhetorics like these feed into rising waves of gender essentialism which scrutinize masculinity in women as a means of sniffing out and harming (socially or physically) transgender women. Any woman who doesn’t fit into this narrowly defined lens of womanhood with a progressive sheen is now seen as an outsider, or at worst, not a woman at all.
We might also encounter the claim that these outsider women are misogynistic (think branding every tomboy as the ‘I’m not like other girls’ type), for behaving in ways that contradict the colonial and patriarchal grain. The association of feminism with such a narrow conception of femininity has put us in a complete 180 degree twist where genuine anti-patriarchal presentations are being framed as misogynistic by the very women who claim to be ‘for the girls’ (read: feminist). Any opposition to the cultural ‘feminist’ project of hyperfemininity as reclamation of one’s power, be it blatant (i.e verbalizing one’s thoughts on the matter) or more quietly active (read: refusing to conform to dominant conceptions of femininity) is seen as anti-feminist, as the woman who is battling her own internalized misogyny and ‘has some things to work through’. The ironic fact of the matter is that those who refuse the hegemony of hyper-feminine conformity are actually the ones who are truly subverting current patriarchal expectations. What’s more, gender non-conforming women deserve wholehearted acceptance for the ways in which they present, regardless of whether or not it is a feminist project. It would be bad enough if bimbo feminism simply negated the power of these gender presentations (which it does) but the real issue lies in the fact that it also tends to delegitimize these presentations entirely. This is especially harmful when we consider the colonial implications of these hegemonic ideals and how women of color, particularly queer women of color, are uniquely and predominantly affected in a system already stacked against them.
All this is to say, essentially, that bimbo feminism does not exist in a vacuum. In fact, it specifically creates a popular space of feminized incompetence in which, through the lens of female cluelessness, real political turmoil is delegitimized. This brings us back to Nikita’s video on Palestine. Were Nikita’s foundational character not bad enough, her commentary on Palestine, in which genocidal colonialism is envisioned as a nightclub, shows a complete and utter lack of empathy and awareness. There is something particularly sinister about dumbing down a violent humanitarian crisis to make it palatable to a certain illegitimate feminist brand which rests upon the assumed stupidity of its female audience. There is, of course, the fact that such an issue such as colonialism should never be talked about in metaphors, particularly a metaphor so base as ‘the club’. This severely undermines the significance of the issue and shows a profound lack of respect and sensitivity for those who are dying at the hands of this senseless violence. Not only that, but it also operates on the highly misogynistic assumption that women would naturally struggle to understand a devastating ethnic cleansing as an unadulterated concept. All the while as Nikita speaks, there are Palestinian women dying, women staging die-ins in San Francisco and calling for a ceasefire, female journalists risking their lives to report on the crisis… the list goes on. Yes, women are intelligent enough to comprehend these issues, but what Nikita’s brand seems to truly forget is that women are also intertwined as deeply with these issues as their male counterparts, if not more. Why should women be condescended to about an issue that is actively tearing apart the lives of their kind? Whether you consider bimbo feminism to be campy and fun or legitimate feminist praxis, it is highly evident that these conceptions of female stupidity will escape containment and come to wreak legitimate havoc on our senses of empathy and understanding as we process incredibly sorrowful demonstrations of imperial power, late-stage capitalism, colonialism, and more.
These concepts have their predecessors, too. One popular offshoot of the wave of bimbo feminism is girl math. First came “girl dinner” - a trend which, while meant in good fun, many social media users noted was veering toward eating disorder fodder, with its small portions and snacks-for-dinner layout. “Girl math” is where I personally start to have a real issue. Girl math again takes the idea of the silly, ditzy, frivolously-spending girl and makes it into something cute and quirky. I wouldn’t say girl math claims to be feminist in any way, but I would also say that as a trend, it painfully lacks any level of self awareness. Essentially, girl math is feminized-stupidity lite. It’s not all the way there, but it has that certain girlishness-as-ditziness that we see being so proudly claimed in the bimbo feminist trends. A major part of the problem also lies in letting trends such as girl math and girl dinner run rampant without any self-awareness, with creators batting away any and all criticism with cloying, sugary sympathy - “girl, I am so sorry you feel this way! Girl math is for every girlie who just feels a little crazy!”. Thus we get this rise in female content creators on the hot mic granted the ability to flippantly universalize the female experience as something ditzy, regressive, and capitalist in nature. And thus, a pipeline is created where content creators such as Nikita are rewarded for making a major housing crisis into a metaphor about daddy issues. For the girlies, of course.
Let’s look at some examples.
“Girl math is when purchases under ten dollars don’t count!”
“Girl math is needing to buy a new outfit for every special event no matter how many clothes you already have!”
“Girl math is saying if I don’t look at my bank account the money isn’t disappearing!”
“Girl math is when you can technically afford an extra 400 calories today because you broke a sweat!”
Those are all very real posts that I found very easily online.
I shouldn’t even have to get into why that last one is so painfully problematic - it’s pretty much eating disorder rhetoric verbatim. What’s interesting to note, though, is that the majority of “girl math” is rooted in purchasing, or, generally speaking, in money. What’s more is that “girl math” is most often used specifically to justify poor spending habits or overspending. This is the real kicker, and what really aligns girl math with its regressive older sister, bimbo feminism. Girl math assumes that femininity, and at times even womanhood as a whole, is rooted in over-consumption. What’s more, it assumes that womanhood is rooted in overconsumption to the point of being ignorant and clueless about one’s finances. Lest we forget that women have only been able to open their own bank accounts without a man since 1974! The barring of women from financial institutions was, while rooted in anti-liberatory efforts, fueled by notions of female incompetence. Why are we so enthused to return to these old-fashioned, patriarchal notions that specifically barred us from equality in the first place? Bimbo feminists might throw around the word “reclamation” somewhere in their answer to this question. Unfortunately, “reclamation” is not a word that can be tossed into a soup with other words to make something progressive. Reclamation is a tool that takes power away from the oppressor through subverting and dissolving meaning. Playing stupid and frivolous does not subvert or dissolve any notions of what womanhood is to the patriarchal system which is already designed to reinforce these precise notions. And consuming more and more products in order to reaffirm this performance is definitely not a countercultural act.
On that note, why are we so enthused as women to be throwing our money at makeup, clothes, hair products, skincare products, and the like? Have we not realized that consumption as a means of achieving desirability is particularly designed to feed an insatiable hunger? I could write at least one entire supplemental essay on the fact that hyper-consumption is already incessantly pushed upon women by just about every facet of our culture imaginable (but I won’t right now, so I recommend instead binge-reading The Unpublishable by Jessica DeFino). With the rise in social media and digital advertisements, it is impossible to escape the bombardment of brands, celebrities, and content creators alike telling us that if we just consume three more magic products, all of our skin issues (or hair issues, or gut issues, or weight loss issues) will be solved. We scroll and scroll, and we are pushed to consume more and more to become the perfect palatable image of womanhood. Blemishless, hairless, thin, silky-skinned… you can buy it all! And if you don’t, the messages implicitly suggest, you will be seen as an outsider, as unkempt, and ultimately, as undesirable and unfeminine.
Bimbo feminism and girl math are like gasoline to this dumpster fire. This is also what makes these trends truly, painfully regressive - they are so fundamentally capitalist, in the most insidious way. The bimbo feminist has a dress code, and as such, she must consume egregious amounts in order to fit in - just as patriarchy prefers it. Bimbo feminism encourages consumerism by its very nature - it’s a part of the characterization of the “girly girl” who owns tons of lip gloss, bright pink clothing, blonde wigs, lash sets, etc. Bimbo feminism plays directly into the hands of the market which profits off of hyper-consumption as a means of achieving femininity (read: as a means of achieving desirability). Girl math supplements this act by waving away aforementioned hyper-consumption as insignificant and frivolous. And because bimbo feminism is a trend, we all know that popular fast fashion companies are going to pounce on the opportunity to market to these skyrocketing desires for a new disposable aesthetic. What’s more, the followers of these trends are going to lap up every new cheap rollout - because if it’s a trend just like everything else, why would you go through all the trouble of investing in pricier, quality products?
Bimbo feminism and girl math completely negate the consequences and implications of consumerism in a capitalist society with the near-explicit goal of making women spend money to feel whole (hint: you’re never meant to feel whole). Not only is the bimbo feminist who hyper-consumes playing into the hands of morally corrupt fast fashion companies and billionaires, she also feeds directly into the patriarchal and media-fueled conception that women must consume in order to be palatable and thus, in order to be loved and desired. It’s actually quite easy for brands and marketers to ride the wave of this cultural shift, because - surprise surprise - hyper-femininity as a lucrative market is really nothing new. Generally speaking, our society prizes and has prized femininity as the standard in women. Thus, advertisements are going to and have been catering to this dominant culture. It’s an eternal feedback loop - the products are designed to perpetuate consumerist paradigms of femininity, the advertisements reaffirm these paradigms, the women consume to quell that insatiable hunger for desirability, and it begins again as trends and beauty standards shift. This is also why I mention that gender-nonconformity in women does so much more countercultural heavy lifting - because this is much more difficult to formulate into a product market. Not only does the woman who does not conform to patriarchal beauty standards naturally consume less, she is also less palatable to a common consumer base. This is not to say that there is anything inherently wrong with femininity, by any means - this essay does not aim to make that claim at any point. The issue, rather, lies in how hegemonic structures of femininity are interpreted and weaponized within a capitalist market. Bimbo feminism, girl math, and every feminized rhetoric which roots itself in financial and political incompetence is completely in line with the patriarchal and capitalist grain which aims to keep us oppressed, dazed and obliviously happy in the first place.
I’m sure that the majority of girl math and bimbo feminism supporters will just tell me that I’m taking myself too seriously and that this is all fun and games. I would hope that isn’t the conclusion one arrives at upon finishing this read, but I’m not mad at it. In such an incredibly turbulent society as the one we are currently navigating, it is normal to not only desire to escape, but to also glom onto rising structures that appear to promise happiness. Bimbo feminism is absolutely not an isolated perpetuator of the current structuring of the world. It is, rather, a symptom of this structure (although of course it will tell you that it is not a symptom). Our perpetual skew towards hyper-consumption - both of media and of physical products - is one of the many issues that have created the ingredients for bimbo feminism to thrive. The desire to escape patriarchal conceptions of womanhood is also not only completely understandable but absolutely necessary. As I have elucidated, however, bimbo feminism approaches this struggle in a completely regressive and unhelpful manner. The first step is self-awareness - that is, gaining clarity on the ways in which these trends are dangerous as well as what they truly reflect about the current needs and wants that women are experiencing socio-culturally. Grounding ourselves in the real world by turning away from excess social media is always an excellent first step, if nothing else. The course we chart beyond understanding is as yet unclear. I can only hope that it is a map we are willing to rebuild as intelligent women in complete solidarity with one another.
This is a brilliant essay. My only worries when it comes to calling out bimbo feminism for what it is is that the course-correct will veer too far in the opposite direction, to the point of degrading femininity itself. You did mention this above. The problem, like you said, is not the femininity or the way people are expressing their womanhood, but rather the fact that stupidity and oversimplification is inherently tied to their idea of femininity. It's almost a case of internalized sexism, the way I see it. Also, this is a bit of a tangent, but the fact that "girl math" only reinforces the social custom (if you can call it that) of infantilizing women into "girls" is gross to me. But that's a whole other issue. Thank you for these thoughts, they are so eloquently put.
loved this! very well said. something else i’ve noticed as of late is the absolute refusal from women, namely influencers (lol), who wear makeup to engage with well meaning discussions about how the beauty industry is a strain of the patriarchy itself. in large part because saying such is perceived by many, even within “progressive” circles, as misogynistic in and of itself. similar to the sex work discourse, i think we are conditioned to treat these subjects with a heightened degree of a sort of absolutism. if misogynistic men say x & you as a feminist say the same thing then that must mean that you hate women too. when in actuality, a misogynist saying that they hate women who wear too much makeup does not come from the same place as a feminist positing that the beauty industry preys on women’s insecurities (which it helps to manufacture!) in a bid to generate as much profit as possible. this has only gotten worse with the rise of social media influencers.
i don’t have tiktok but i am on instagram & those tend to make their way over there so i have seen these makeup influencers take the audio from this one podcast (sigh) where a young woman was essentially saying that she believes that makeup is bad for women bc it makes them believe that their self-worth is tied to consumption—and use it for the background of their makeup videos to present what she said as misogynistic drivel created to “tear women down” instead of an astute critique of the beauty industry & those who fall victim to its wills. it’s especially concerning bc of the rise of “trad-wives” & the disdain towards the mere mention of feminism as a liberatory politic instead of as a buzz word to sell something in general. it’s all so cynical & late stage capitalism-esque it makes you feel like that one fiona apple quote about there being no hope for women—ik she’s said that she didn’t rlly mean it—just with the addition of “under capitalism”. sorry for such a long comment haha hope you have a lovely day!