Like many popular colloquialisms,“girl” has a history in Black,transgender and gay communities,where the word may be used to acknowledge a shared experience or express a subtle form of solidarity that only those in the know would recognise.

“A lot of my experiences as an adult trans woman and as a writer have been reckoning with one’s girlhood when the world didn’t really let you have one,or didn’t admit that you had one,” says Casey Plett,36,a founder of LittlePuss Press,a literary publisher. When she hears her friends say that the “girlies” are getting together – meaning a group of trans women – it’s “like a wink where we know what we’re talking about,” she says. “But I don’t think it’s uniquely trans.”

In her bookGirl Online,Joanna Walsh argues that almost everyone becomes a girl when they log onto the internet,where users often share confessional writing and shuttle back and forth between “cute” and “smart”. They post memes and ironic observations one moment and level earnest critiques about politics or culture the next. What anyone really means when they post,whether they’re joking or serious,is often held coyly in suspension.

This mode is useful for being able to turn the tables on any argument quite quickly,Walsh says in an interview. “A lot can be learned from this slightly vaudeville tone,” she says.

Online and off,“girls” play on the stereotypes sometimes advanced in media and pop culture that portray them as vapid,self-absorbed and uncritical. For some,those labels can be all the more reason to embrace the word – not because it’s appealing to be diminished but because they present an opportunity to take advantage of those who might diminish you.

If someone can’t penetrate several layers of irony to determine whether you are merely pretending to be obtuse or are genuinely slow on the uptake,well,that’s a good laugh for the girls.

One might assume “girl” identity as a way to show naysayers just how clever girls actually are,or to show men how unserious those things to which they ascribe such importance may be. Claiming that something that is supposed to be “for boys” – say,baseball,the Grateful Dead,Karl Ove Knausgaard – is really “for girls,” is like a pinprick into a balloon,slowly letting the air out of masculinity.

“Femininity is still seen as silly and frivolous,” says Marlowe Granados,31,who wrote inThe Baffler in 2021 about what she argues is the sneaky subversiveness of the “bimbo,” whose humour is often at men’s expense,though they are none the wiser. “If people underestimate you,there’s actually more room to move around,and you can give people a shock when you prove them wrong.”

The use of the word “girl” or the performance of an exaggerated form of femininity,Granados says,may be “so subtle that people won’t get it or catch on”. But,she adds:“You have the knowledge that you’re in on the joke,and that’s the whole thing.”

Balingit says that part of the approach was bringing levity to topics others might regard more earnestly. She cited a Substack newsletter calledBoy Movies,by Allison Picurro. In the newsletter,Picurro has described Daniel Craig as “a girl actor trapped within the boy movie industrial complex”.

“You can take things for men and make them less serious,” Balingit adds.

Perhaps that’s the kind of slippery power one might claim with a slippery word:with a simple gesture,any cultural artifact can be subsumed into what Balingit called “girl culture”. As self-described girls online assert ownership of Pilates and iced lattes as well asUlysses,irritable bowel syndrome and tinned fish,so-called girl culture might just be the ruling order. And with actual teenage girls shaping much of pop culture and pioneering linguistic trends,some argue:wasn’t it always that way?

The US summer’s largest cultural events have been Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour,Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour and the Barbie movie,which together swept social media and news headlines,and raked in a fortune in a swirl of friendship bracelets,sequined cowboy hats and pink. (This is also to say that “girl” carries not only cultural capital,but also literal capital.)

“I think there’s always been these two parallel tracks,” says Samhita Mukhopadhyay,a former executive editor atTeen Vogue. “Girl culture is the dominant culture,but it has always been seen as less-than because it’s for girls.”

The word “girl” is in diametrical opposition not to “boy” but to “woman,” allowing women to enjoy simple feminine pleasures without the complications that some associate with womanhood. While women have adult responsibilities and are the subject of feminist discourse around contentious topics like gender pay gaps and unpaid domestic work,girls – at least as adult women conceive of them – are free to be lighthearted and fun-loving.

“Girl culture is the dominant culture,but it has always been seen as less-than because it’s for girls.”

Samhita Mukhopadhyay,former executive editor at Teen Vogue

These girls are also perhaps a reaction to the so-called girl bosses who preceded them,high-functioning young women whose popular mandate was to hustle in the workplace in order to be taken as seriously as their male counterparts. While some sincerely embraced the label,others said it diminished ambitious women. And many more argued that would-be girl bosses seemed to use their power to uphold the same old patriarchal norms in the workplace. As that critique became more dominant,the girl boss’s stock began to fall.

Easier,then,to take “girl” and leave “boss” behind.

“I think there’s a safety in girlhood,in the mistakes and the naïveté,the youth and maybe even the beauty,which is all pushed by the media we consume,” Reese says. “Womanhood,meanwhile,is seeped with this lack of playfulness,seriousness,ageing – the horror,right?”

An easy way to understand the gulf between the two words is to try swapping one with the other,says Hillary Keeney,46,who lives in New Orleans and writes books on mysticism with her husband. “No one is going to say ‘woman dinner,’ or ‘women’s night out,’” she says. “That’s too serious.”

It is not the first time women have reached for a different word to encapsulate their ambivalent feelings about womanhood. Almost three decades ago,women wrestled with what at the time was a new embrace of “gal,” according to an article inThe New York Times.

“Restless once again,we are struggling to find a word that conveys snazziness and style,a casual term for the double-X set,a word without condescension or sneer,something more relaxed than ‘woman,’ something less fussy than ‘female,’ our equivalent of guy,” theTimes journalist Natalie Angier wrote in 1995. “A delicious egalitarian word like … gal.”

Still,“gal” had its critics,just as “girl” does now. Upon catching wind of “girl dinner,” Joyce Meggett,68,a librarian at Harry S Truman College in Chicago,says she initially found the word condescending and dismissive. (Later,though,she realised that “the whole girl thing was a lot more nuanced than I thought.”)

And so while “girl” may fill a particular void at the moment – offering a capacious container for just about any feeling one might have about gender,adulthood,feminism and more – it probably won’t be long before it’s used a slightly different way or replaced altogether.

“I’ve always believed that gender is like language – it’s as infinitely broad and enormous as language is,” Plett says. “There’s an infinite amount of things you can do with language,to make new things and mould it to your own wishes.”

The New York Times

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