Girl math. Girl dinner. Pink stores and blue stores. Social media has repackaged gendered bioessentialism into the lens of cute trends, something to be sold, marketed, and profited from. As feminism continues to evolve and the gendered perspectives of Americans grow ever more polarized, it’s critical that we examine the undertones of comments and cultural shifts that may appear innocuous. What appears playful is often political—the joke that women are “bad at math” becomes a punchline instead of a stereotype, a sparse meal branded as “girl dinner” becomes self-aware irony instead of commentary on disordered eating. Feminism once fought the premise of biological determinism, but today, the same ideology returns filtered through pastel fonts and affiliate links.
However, as feminism is disseminated through social media channels and capitalized upon, it loses much of its meaning. Critiques of these trends are often met with the same response: if a woman has made the choice to do something, how can it be problematic? Isn’t the point of feminism that women have more options? Coined by writer Linda Hirshman, “choice feminism” refers to the belief that any choice a woman makes is empowering and inherently feminist simply because she has chosen it, framing personal agency as the ultimate form of liberation. Through the lens of choice feminism, anything can be feminist, from being a “girlboss” CEO to a trad-wife to embracing one’s “divine feminine.” But that begs the question: if everything is feminist, what is feminism still opposing? The combination of choice feminism and rapid-fire social media trends has rendered feminism meaningless, defining every action and feeling as progressive while ignoring the contradictions that necessitate.
Feminism, at its core, is a complex material and political movement that cannot be simplified to personal feelings. The dissolution of feminism isn’t accidental, nor is it an inherent failing of the movement itself. The continuous increase of political polarization and American capitalism has created the conditions for its demise—in a polarized culture, ideologies are flattened into slogans, and in a capitalistic culture, those slogans are commodified. Together, they transform movements into aesthetics. Polarization demands that feminism either be wholly celebrated or wholly condemned, leaving little room for critique or refinement. Painted as either a man-hating caricature or as something that can’t be scrutinized to avoid giving leeway to opponents, feminism has resulted in intellectual stagnation. So what is the future of feminism now?
To me, it begins with the acknowledgement that not every choice is feminist, and that that isn’t the end of the world. As a girl who wears makeup, I’m probably not doing it “just for me,” no matter what I tell myself, and that doesn’t make me evil and a disastrous agent of the patriarchy. It just means I should interrogate that. Feminism is not a mood or aesthetic, but a framework for analyzing power. Acknowledging this distinction allows feminism to regain clarity, shifting from “Did she choose it?” to “What systems shaped that choice?” Who benefits from trends and profits from narratives? Feminism must be comfortable with its definition, and that definition is one of a movement that opposes structural inequality.
The future of feminism, especially in a polarized America, will depend on its ability to re-center systemic analysis without devolving into moral policing. It must resist the temptation to shame individual women while still investigating the forces that shape collective outcomes. There is a difference between criticizing a person and critiquing a system. Social media often collapses that distinction, framing any analysis as a personal attack. But sustainable movements cannot operate on defensiveness alone. “Girl math” isn’t just a cute trend, and it’s not free of faults just because women endorse it. But women who do endorse it shouldn’t be villainized; rather, we should acknowledge why and how women fall victim to internalized misogyny and how we can reshape the structures that influence that.
As high-speed social media platforms continue to demand immediacy and outrage, it’s critical that feminism slows down and steps back. If polarization and capitalism have transformed feminism into a product, its future relies on refusing to be sold. It’s okay for feminism to not always be palatable, and it’s okay for feminism to critique itself and to evolve. But a movement that stands for everything stands for nothing, and branding something with pink and girls doesn’t make it liberatory. The future of feminism will be decided not by what we market as empowering, but by what we are brave enough to question when it isn’t.
Anika Gupta is a senior at The Nueva School. She is the Co-Captain of the Public Forum Debate Team, Co-President of the Feminism and Gender Equity Club, and the Co-Founder and Co-President of Supporting Youth STEM Advancement (SySTEMa).