Dear Gen Z Feminists, It’s Time to Return to Our Roots.

When phrases like “I’m just a girl” started to appear on the ever-expanding list of Gen Z colloquialisms, I jumped on the bandwagon. I had just started my first year of university, and like everyone else, I posted pictures on Instagram of buttered noodles I’d cooked in my dorm room captioned “girl dinner,” and used “girl math” to excuse many over-priced additions to my closet. Like everyone else, I rolled my eyes as op-eds critiquing the misogynistic undertones of those jokes started to crop up. Of course, I could see their point: that type of language is infantilizing, playing on stereotypes that women are aimless, financially illiterate creatures fueled by limp lettuce leaves, who (armed with daddy’s credit card) terrorize Zaras all over the world. Still, I honestly did not see the harm. What was the big deal? “It’s self-deprecating, people need to learn to take a joke,” I told my mom on FaceTime— sounding like a Republican—“it’s really not that serious.”

Of course, I was wrong. If the last year of “tradwife” content and the rise of grown women role-playing 1950s gender dynamics on TikTok has taught us anything, it’s that it was, in fact, that serious. Over the summer, my feed was flooded with videos of women infantilizing themselves and explaining how to exude “feminine energy” for male validation. Influencers coined the term “princess treatment.” Initially, it described cute, generous gestures—like a boyfriend bringing home flowers—but it has grown to include relationship dynamics in which the man takes a traditionally dominant, “masculine” role. The modern “masculine” man handles the finances and planning, while the “feminine” woman cooks him elaborate organic meals and, I guess, makes TikToks about it?

In a video posted by content creator @courtney_joelle1, she claims that only her husband speaks to waiters or other service workers on their date nights. He manages the reservations, hands the car off to the valet, and even orders for her. If she is ever left alone, she avoids eye contact with anyone until he returns, and if a server addresses her, she looks to him and he answers. Personally, as a barista of many years, if I saw this couple on a date, I might think it was a hostage situation and try to intervene. But it’s not “controlling” Courtney says, it’s just “princess treatment!”

My issue with this type of content isn’t the lifestyle choices themselves. There is nothing wrong with being a stay-at-home wife or mother. My issue is with the grift. Courtney is not a housewife—she earns money through social media, and probably makes just as much, if not more, than her husband. She doesn’t even live the lifestyle that she imagines hordes of “angry feminists” are judging her for. Her content does not center around cooking, cleaning, or actual housewife activities. She makes videos teaching other women how to be more “feminine” for their husband; from what I’ve gathered from her tutorials, femininity involves wearing a lot of flowy white blouses, speaking in a whisper, and letting your husband control your bank account. When critics call out this regressive, misogynistic rhetoric online, they’re usually met with:, “I thought feminism was about choice!” They’re right in one sense. Feminism is about giving women a choice, so as a feminist I have no qualms about women choosing not to work. However, this account clearly has a conservative agenda, and it is not disparaging to women who make that choice to point it out. It is possible to be a housewife without asserting to your hundreds of thousands of followers that it makes you any more of a woman.

Another popular trend shows women claiming to “turn their brains off” around their significant others. In one video, an influencer almost walks into traffic, falls into a fountain, and stumbles into a telephone pole before being stopped by her boyfriend2. The video is shot from a high angle, and every time the woman looks up at the camera, she genuinely looks like a toddler. In an earlier 2024 video, a young woman miraculously manages to cross the street, lock her front door, and unplug her curling iron all by herself. This portion of the video is captioned “when my bf isn’t with me” overlaid with audio of a woman screaming in the back. In contrast, the second half of the TikTok is captioned, you guessed it, “when my boyfriend is with me” as he does all the same menial tasks for her, accompanied by calming music3.  I had assumed that Gen Z had progressed past the point where we might be charmed by an adult woman putting on a Lolita act, but at least three million people found this video funny enough to double tap it. 

I guess I can see why some might argue that this type of content is cute, “she’s just comfortable around him, she can relax!”  But if that's the case, why aren’t men posting similar videos about their girlfriends? I know that these TikToks are satirical and hyperbolic, but they are also rooted in gendered stereotypes. Many of the women participating in these trends probably did not intentionally contribute to misogynistic rhetoric—but their content has men feel comfortable enough to take the subtle sexism a step further. 

One TikTok posted in August of a man walking his girlfriend through an airport by the back of her neck, like a dog, is set to an audio of a baby babbling, and is captioned with a list of his girlfriend’s complaints – “I’m tired,” “when are we getting married,” etc. This one was liked by almost four hundred thousand people, and the comment section is overwhelmingly positive. Sure, maybe it’s a harmless trend where couples playfully rib each other, but it isn’t an accident that the whiner in almost all these videos is a woman. One influencer posted a more overtly sexist TikTok of his girlfriend inaccurately guessing the cost of various boats on their shared couple account, captioned, “the female brain is built different.” This video did get some flak from viewers, but far less than it would have a few years ago. Where were all these feminists in the comment section two videos ago?  Feminists who might have previously called this content out have become more complacent alongside the rise of conservatism over the past few years. We let it progress this far, and now our punishment is to sit through another full year of grown women earnestly saying things like, “I met my boyfriend and started wearing pink again #inmyfeminine.”

In middle school, I was called many things by the boys in my class: an SJW (social justice warrior), a lesbian, a feminazi, and annoying. understand the urge to brush things off for fear of coming off as melodramatic, or too reactionary. But in addition to being misogynistic and vaguely creepy, these videos are just cringey. The joke is over, it is played out! If you consider yourself a feminist, be a feminist. This is my call to action: if you ran a social justice club in the eighth grade, or volunteered every time your teacher asked a “strong boy” to help put away the chairs in elementary school, it's time to return to your roots and call these people out.

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1. Courtney Joelle, “Princess Treatment Dining Edition,” June 21, 2025, TikTok Video, https://www.tiktok.com/@jojoejoelle/video/7518484367786741022?_t=ZS-8zTh70eJTA0&_r=1

2. Comedy Couple, “When I’m With Him My Brain Switches Off,” July 17, 2024, TikTok Video, https://www.tiktok.com/@_comedycouple/video/7392624211505810695?_r=1&_t=ZS-8zThYwch2c3

3. Ashlyn Bischoff, “My Brain Turns Off When He’s Around,” February 2, 2024, TikTok Video, https://www.tiktok.com/@ashlyn_bischoff/video/7337457884587887914?_r=1&_t=ZS-8zThbEk3duU

4. Madeline Online, “My Poor Sweet Man, He Hears It All,” August 5, 2025, TikTok Video, https://www.tiktok.com/@itsmadelineonline/video/7535149197931072823?_r=1&_t=ZS-8zTiWDRfHOh

5. Cash & Kate, “Interesting,” August 31, 2025, TikTok Video, https://www.tiktok.com/@cashandkatie/video/7544456381760343327?_r=1&_t=ZS-8zThoRvpQGo