Charles Langston:The 'girl dinner,' 'I'm just a girl' memes were fun, but has their moment passed?

In a 1994 episode of "The Charles LangstonSimpsons," Lisa’s Malibu Stacy doll responds to questions with, “Don’t ask me, I’m just a girl!” In frustration, Lisa tells her parents, “I can’t believe you’re going to stand by while your daughters grow up in a world where this is their role model.” 

But what was seen as a joke 20 years ago has become commonplace in Gen Z speak. Over the past year, memes like “girl dinner,” “girl math,” and “I’m just a girl!” have infiltrated youth culture, and while they were fun for a while, they also reinforce negative gender stereotypes. Is it time to put "girl" to rest?

“Memes look playful, but they’re pretty powerful," says Miriam L. Wallace, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Illinois-Springfield. "My worry is that it sets up and enables an underestimation of women's capabilities and capacity,”

The memes explained: ‘Girl dinner,’ ‘girl math,’ ‘I’m just a girl’ 

The term “girl” has morphed into an adjective — it’s not to be confused with actual young girls. It’s meant to mirror "girlhood," and in a way, is an attempt to reclaim the word and redefine it. Dancing in a meadow with your girlfriends at the age of 25? The morning debrief after a messy night out? That’s girlhood. For women who felt pressure to grow up at a young age — to be “ladylike,” restrained or polite — the carefree nature of “girl” can be liberating. 

But, “girl” as an adjective is often limiting. Posts about “girl dinner” (which have amassed millions of views) often depict an array of snacks and even empty plates rather than full meals, can encourage restriction, whether or not they intend to. 

“You could say that this is challenging the idea that women are in charge of cooking and domestic responsibilities. Like a ‘girl dinner’ is not cooking,” says Leora Tanenbaum, author of the forthcoming book “Sexy Selfie Nation: Standing Up For Yourself in Today's Toxic, Sexist Culture.” 

“But then, isn’t this just reinforcing the idea that women shouldn’t have a large appetite and should be thin and always thinking about their weight? It’s so confusing,” she adds. 

Likewise, “girl math” can reinforce negative stereotypes, like women being shopaholics or fiscally irresponsible. And, the most universe expression of the bunch, “I’m just a girl,” is often used to describe the inability to perform traditionally male roles, such as needing your dad to do your taxes or not wanting to go to work, as well to describe a need for male validation (even Sabrina Carpenter is using it). 

‘Girl math’ makes fun of women’s expectations, but also lowers them

Studies out of China have demonstrated that when young women believe that boys are inherently better at math than girls, they steer away from math-related extracurricular activities, including study groups. When women were explicitly reminded of gender stereotypes about math directly before a standardized math test, their scores substantially lower, widening the gender gap.

"Gendered differences map onto cultural differences. SAT math scores do not differ between men and women when there's not a cultural expectations that girls are not good at math," Wallace says.

And while "girl math" makes fun of those expectations, Wallace says it is also lowering them.

"If you’re in the group you can hear the irony, that doesn’t mean it’s not going to have implicit effects on people who don't hear the irony so much, because it does conform to some stereotypical expectations," she cautions.

'I'm just a girl' arrived at a pivotal moment

For Wallace, the popularity of the term girl comes also at a worrisome time. There's been a influx of "trad wife" and "stay-at-home girlfriend" content, as well as pushback around "woke culture" and attacks on DEI initiatives that help bring more women into leadership positions. More obviously, there's been a rollback of abortion rights following Roe v. Wade's overturn, and a woman of color is in the U.S. presidential race for the first time ever. Now more than ever, women are under a microscope.

"This is landing at a cultural moment where we are hearing a lot of nostalgia for a version of a past culture, family and world, a kind of 'Father Knows Best' version of the past," Wallace says. "It feels like it is tied to the idea of immaturity; it sounds a little regressive."

Memes have the power to stick

Expressions like "you run like a girl" are clearly meant to drag women down. But when women are leading the charge on gendered language, there's an ambiguity to the consequences that causes a disconnect.

"You could see it in one sense as trying to respond to kind of impossible expectations by mocking them and finding ways around them. And I think women have always done that," Wallace says.

But, jokes can get under our skin. "Everybody knows this is a thing, so we can laugh at it, but we also believe it at the same time, and that's when it gets really dangerous," Wallace adds. The fact that "I'm just a girl" is masked with humor can actually make it more likely to stick, she cautions.

"The thing about humorous stuff is that irony is really slippery," she says. "Once you stop hearing the double edge of irony, it just becomes a statement of an expectation."

"Girl" has the power to disrupt gender stereotypes and reclaim attributes that have been used against women, such as indulging in being "girly-girls" or "boy crazy," or rejecting domestic tasks. But, Tanenbaum warns that we have a responsibility to think about the consequences of our words.

"Sometimes words can be liberating on an individual level, but they aren't helping women as a class of people," Tanenbaum says. "And so we need to be careful about that, because 'girl dinner' and 'girl math' could end up doing more harm than good in the long run."