Staff Writer Charlotte Galea takes a look at social media trends promoting conservative gender norms and considers their possible impact on the socio-political beliefs of young women.
Growing up, all I heard about was the “girl boss”. She juggled business meetings and cocktails with her friends, she didn’t have to choose between kids and a career, and her heeled boots click-clacked as she walked. Now, though, it seems more women believe having it all is far too difficult. Become the stay-at-home girlfriend (STAG), instead!
This girl does not have a care in the world. The STAG wakes to fresh sheets and a matching PJ set (that you can buy on her TikTok shop!). She brews coffee and displays the machine she has to make it. She pops vitamins out of a carefully-placed, labelled bottle. She does her twenty-step skincare routine and includes names of all the products she uses. Some STAGs are only ever at their kitchen countertops, cooking in floral dresses. Each one is so heavily branded that she herself could be mistaken for a product.
Despite a childhood of promises that I could have it all, I find myself surrounded by women stating they’re “just a girl” while their STEM boyfriends complete “big-boy work”, or explaining how I can “access my divine femininity”. The past decade has seen the rise of the ‘tradwifes’, a collective of women adhering to ‘traditional’ roles in the home.
I can’t help but wonder: are young women becoming more conservative? I asked thirty peers about those social media trends – whether they’d heard of them and what were their thoughts. Many chose to remain anonymous, so, based on their responses, I divided them into four categories based on the original ‘girl bosses’ from the popular show ‘Sex and the City’. Thus, we have the “Carries”, the “Charlottes”, the “Samanthas” and the “Mirandas”.
The Carries, the largest group, either hadn’t heard of the trends or didn’t think they impacted society. When asked about the line “I’m Just a Girl” derived from the Gwen Stefani song, the Carries used it without considering the consequences: “it never occurred to me that this could be sexist, even though it’s a clearly gendered phrase”.
The Charlottes often believed women “want to accept their femininity” and that it “should be protected in the same way masculinity ought to”, according to one respondent who thought the ‘I’m Just a Girl’ trend was “a fun celebration of girlhood and womanhood”.
The “Samanthas” firmly asserted that while what women do is their business, it also comes down to the patriarchy. One said, “men have gotten away with lots worse because of the phrase ‘boys will be boys'”. She added: “it definitely does play into sexism, but it’s manipulating men so that we have an easier life”.
The Mirandas were the most extreme. Like the Samanthas, they believed the trends were harmful, but also asserted that choice feminism is “dangerous”. One Miranda stated she’d experienced a “sudden backslide, where being employed and having a job and your own money is a sign that you’re losing your ‘feminine energy’’’.
She and fellow Mirandas had similar responses when asked whether they thought social media were promoting more conservative lifestyles, such as the STAG or the tradwife. “There’s a real idea of ‘screw feminism, I just want to be a mother and not work’”, I heard. She also stated that current trends are “diminishing of feminism, of what it achieved for a woman to safely be a housewife with protections, or to work”.
The Carries had a different stance. “If a woman makes a conscious decision to have a family and get married over a ‘career’ so what?”, one of them asked, though made it clear that women should be able to “have it all” if they wanted to.
Meanwhile, a Charlotte claimed it makes sense: “The idea of having a relaxed lifestyle is appealing to all people. It’s fine that women can settle down as long as they are aware of the possible consequences of not having a career and if it’s an informed choice, why not?”.
The Samanthas consistently blamed men, suggesting that the tradwife movement is “a male fantasy”, so it is male attitudes that need changing. “Enough is enough. We think we’ve reached an end goal in feminism, but we are really just chipping the top of the iceberg”.
My friend, a staunch Miranda, argued that late-stage capitalism is the root of our problems:
“That influencer with the thousand dollar kitchen set making homemade fruit gummies is lying to you in the most obvious way; you will never be her because SMEG and their line of stand mixers are not paying for your lifestyle where you only make aesthetic food and always look gorgeous! This is a product, and women are buying it, hook, line and sinker, and worst of all, the price is their autonomy.”
So, the question is: are you a Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha or Miranda? And if you’re a Charlotte – have you ever stopped to actually question why?
