By The Editorial Board
Recent TikTok trends have seen women bond over the things they have in common, from snacking for dinner to quirky shopping logic. It’s great to see celebrations of girlhood on social media, but these trends quickly changed into something less worthy of celebration.
The “Roman empire” trend conquered TikTok as millions of women asked the men around them how often they think about the Roman empire, instigated by a series of videos suggesting that the thought is a common one among the male population.
That’s pretty benign on its own, but a secondary trend blossomed. Millions more women posted their “girl version” of the Roman empire and included still shots from “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” and various romantic comedy movies. While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying this sort of media, the implication that the Roman empire is for men and the “girl version” is reality television and romance films is a gender role straight from our “pink is for girls, and blue is for boys” past.
In its extremes, one particularly disturbing TikTok offered that the “girl version” of the Roman empire is dropping out of school and becoming a club dancer. The woman in the video swore that all women think about doing this multiple times per week. You heard it here first: Apparently, men can think about history, and women can think about quitting their dreams in favor of a nightclub.
Similarly, “girl dinner” was all fun and games until users started posting videos of unhealthy meals — ones that lacked all nutrition and barely had anything on the plate in the first place. One offender was a TikTok showing a cookie, some hash browns and ketchup paired with a vape. Another woman showed herself taking bites from a single slice of Swiss cheese and throwing it away before the whole slice was even gone.
A parallel “boy dinner” trend showed meals like chicken and rice. In comparison with “girl dinner,” this meal is more nutritious and is associated with high-protein diets for bodybuilding.
What started as a fun joke to show that many women like to pair multiple snacks for a meal became a slippery slope into disordered eating — if one could even call it eating at all. What’s worse is that studies like one in the International Journal of Eating Disorders suggest that teenagers with social media accounts are more likely to display disordered eating behaviors than those without. When we post photos and videos of scant meals for the world to see, we model unhealthy eating habits for impressionable young people, and in this case, it’s specifically targeted at young girls.
Lastly, “girl math” made the rounds on the app as well. How does “girl math” differ from math? “Girl math” is, in the words of one creator, “when I buy something from the store and I return it … I’m actually making money.” Another creator said, “If there’s money on my Starbucks app and I go to buy a coffee and I use the app, it’s free. The coffee is free.”
The difference between “girl math” and normal math is, apparently, an understanding of money. While there’s nothing wrong with having silly spending habits, and it’s true that women tend to shop marginally more than men, it’s important to note that these trends give off the idea that women are less informed and capable when it comes to finances than men — when they aren’t.
The issue with “girl math” is not really the spending habits themselves, but rather the behavior that it models for impressionable social media users. When young girls are targeted with videos that show poor handling of finances, especially when the implication is that all girls do this through the title of “girl math,” they are influenced to spend money in a certain way.
So, while we’re not telling you to shun all social media trends that are cute and funny or to look down on others for liking reality television or romantic comedies, it’s important to examine the implications of trends like the Roman empire, “girl dinner” and “girl math.”
Women have been trying to fight off stereotypes of femininity for decades — stereotypes that say women only like certain types of movies, can’t do math and love going shopping. In recent years, movies like “Barbie” and others have tried to show women that they can be anything and do anything. Trends like these, while being fun and unserious inside jokes among women, can put out an unsavory and counterproductive message.
Here’s the Editorial Board’s “Roman empire”: eating well, financial literacy and celebrating womanhood.
