the substack algorithm recommended this to me, and without any desire to be needlessly mean: you are wrong. most crucially, you misread the vibe; it might be because you are not gen Z. the girls in these videos are playing along with viral catchphrases and aesthetics, holding these memes weakly and posing with them for TikTok’s fantasy realm. they might as well be roleplaying. memes are not wholly meaningless, but they need a rich, expansive, playful analysis. by themselves, read with the literal-minded and inelegant eye of this piece, floating images tell us almost nothing about the world as it is. bumbling internet critics will use them to come up with a "theory" about "culture" only for their false insights to be blown away when the next meme comes along
you also fail to adequately contextualize your argument... “[young women] no longer think it taboo to contemplate using their sex appeal in their favor to get the things they want” is something that could have been written in the 1970s, and i think it might even be lifted from a 90s recap of sex and the city. this is not some post-feminist truth. the belief that women get ahead by using their bodies is very old and widespread, almost as old and widespread as the belief that skinny = hot. the fact that young people are repeating it tells us simply that we still live in a world where these ideas are still in circulation. no ideological movement forward here, only the rattle of the same old ideas in tiktok's cacophony machine
you also fail 2 address the weakest points of your argument. it's below us to go into the obvious dangers of marrying rich, so i'll go into the 2nd weakest point: in looking at the woke era you make a really common and simple mistake. you say that millennial feminism lied, but in fact its messages, like body positivity and “leaning in”, began as attempts to reckon with how sex and sexism intersected with social dynamics. in the late 2000s, they didn't say "being pretty doesn't impact your social status", they said "being pretty impacts your social status quite dramatically, and women waste a lot of time and effort trying to be pretty, how might we change this". obviously then the whole thing became corporatized, increasingly shallow, the subject of obnoxious marketing campaigns and soft-pink pantsuit photoshoots, etc
anyway there is no real power in starving yourself into weakness and no real power in flirting your way to the top (again, women know that the "skinny = hot" formula is as efficiently enforced as the "sexual woman = whore" formula. this, too, hasn't changed). beauty is not power, though i see why you might think it is. beauty is simply a valuable currency. if beauty were real power, it would not depreciate with time, and you wouldn’t need men (your boss, your husband) as intermediaries through which to enact your will into the world; you could just enact it yourself. a lot of the dynamics you describe here are incompatible with stuff like dignity and self-respect. women know this and that's why they're not fleeting the workforce and instead they're 4B-posting (another mostly meaningless tiktok meme). your post is written as if you were simply making an observation, but you also seem to think that this (inaccurately read) shift is good, and even a form of progress. it's very weird
anyway, power and freedom, that’s what matters. i’m an immigrant + in college. my mother still remembers friends of her mother who were beaten to death by their husbands. those women couldn’t leave: they had no money of their own, struggled finding jobs, and nobody believed them when they asked for help. that's actually how many women lived in the world before the last 60 years. you and me and these girls are not immune to this fate. in fact, as fun as it is to talk about becoming a “pink pilates princess” and "using pretty privilege" or whatever, we are closer to it than we might like to think
Thank you thank you thank you!!! The over romanticisation of being a “Pilates princess” and having a “soft life” is so old and I’m bored of seeing people frame it as some sort of post-feminist revelation when it’s not. It’s old and it’s got to go… counterculture is a serious illness
Thank you. And also, lots of people are just dumb. Including lots of young women. And people shouldn't bother thinking too hard about what people with not much in their brain do or click "like" for on a screen.
Criticism is fine but this is needlessly mean and aggressive, it’s a substack article. She’s merely pointing out a trend that is happening, not saying it’s good or bad, and you’re conflating it with how you think things should be
me: its very common for "culture writers" to look at three tiktoks and extrapolate wildly
some AI pfp guy: no, look at this article, which looks at three tiktoks and extrapolates wildly
i know it gets clicks to claim that women yearn to be tradwives, but women are not leaving the workforce en masse; there is simply no economic incentive to. that's a belief based on your perception of how things should be, rather than acknowledging the reality of a legitimate societal trend
The unacknowledged reality is that few young women are sufficiently attractive to garner the rich guy, fewer will marry one and most all of them will be ejected sometime in their 30’s (if they make it that far). The other reality is that there are proportionately fewer rich men given the declining numbers of college-educated straight men. It’s going to be interesting in 10 years….
Precisely. These lessons are old as time, but apparently need to be relearned the hard way every couple generations. If you’re selling your youth and hotness, it has an expiration date. When you divorce (and presumably these rich men are smart enough to insist on a prenup), you’re out of luck. The business degree won’t count for squat if you’ve been out of the workforce for 10 years. The hotness is gone. And you’ve got an extravagant sense of entitlement vastly out of proportion to your appeal.
Fewer rich men, smaller dating pool, less job opportunities - and youth attitudes are catching up with it all. I feel like it’s headed in one direction, and that will be the end of class mobility
I have some hesidency writing this as a man, but I think you're insufficiently harsh here. I have some sympathy with women doing what is good for themselves, but I can't imagine building a good society where an important way for women to achieve success and status is to marry rich men and play on their sexuality to achieve success. I think that promoting this is, in economist speak, defecting in a prisoners dilemma, and in activist speak is failing in a duty of solidarity.
i absolutely agree that in a good society, women should not be primarily achieving success by marrying rich men. but i do think it's reasonable for Gen Z women to acknowledge the sexual dynamics at play in their social and workplace interactions, rather than burying their heads in the sand
This kind of philosophy isn't merely acknowledging the sexual dynamics, it's falling prostrate before them and surrendering in a way that ensures they continue. What you're describing may indeed be a form of power, but it is NOT strength, which is the thing that can't be taken from you. Power is fragile, strength is not. Also, I really don't think we should assume tik tok posters represent a whole generation...this seems naive
I agree that zoomer "feminism" (?) is different from millennial feminism. However, I believe a secondary explanation of the impressions this post is based on (expected to see bunch of hate comments under zoomer content which was unacceptable per millennial standards) is due to how social media algorithms have changed over the years.
Early stage (2010s) social media used to pitch controversial content, since a war in the comment section meant "traffic" and "user engagement". But now, it seems like the algorithms changed such that users simply get served the content they like. We now have assortative mating of social media users and content.
Part of that is that now there is simply more content available, so every user can be served some content they like. Also, algorithms have become significantly better at profiling and predicting what someone will like. But I think it's more because the vibe has changed and people are now sick and fed up with arguing online - they just want to see stuff they like, not stuff they hate and argue about online.
This is possibly also a generational thing - zoomers don't want the drama, they just want a calm, peaceful and happy life, so the algorithm just sends them the content they like. And this is why you generally should see less negative comments online, especially under zoomer content.
I see it here on Substack as well - as I started my newsletter I imagined that one day, a war will break out in the comment section of one of my posts and it will make my post go viral. This never happened - eventually, some of my posts became popular, but simply because a lot of people liked and shared them.
It's going to get interesting as most of Gen Z gets older and begins to realize they'll never be with a rich guy who can give them that life. Will they see themselves as failures? Too ugly to have secured the rich husband? Resentful? How does their eventual relationship look (if any) when it's with a guy who can't give them that life? Unless they have a total change of heart I can't imagine it being a healthy relationship. Who wants to be in a relationship with someone who resents you because you aren't rich enough?
Really great analysis of the TikTok girls. I’m never on there so now I know who to turn to whenever I need Gen Z trends demystified.
I feel your article looked at a specific subset of girls who are more open to these transactions, and then generalized their opinions to all of the Gen Z girls. I do agree with the overall point - in the modern era, hypergamy does allow women the privilege to marry into better positions. However, I think it’s primarily the ones with lower morality who are actually taking up the offer. I would suspect that there are others who are still cognizant of other factors and give weight to factors outside of wealth/status. There’s other negative downstream effects of making this trade off (man may not be loyal, the lifestyle will be much different than what they’re used to, their friend group may view her as a sellout), and I imagine women who are older may be more realistic about these factors.
Hmm so I’m not saying that all Gen Z girls are looking to marry rich or otherwise engage in hypergamy. My point is that Gen Z is more open to using their sexuality to get things in general. For example—maybe if you dress better at the office, people will just generally like you more, and be more willing to get coffee with you, which could lead to more serendipitous opportunities in your career. You don’t need to be literally sleeping with your boss or marrying the CEO to take advantage of your looks—there are many, much more subtle ways to gain power by being hot—and my core observation is that, while millennials shied away from any form of that (to the point of even denying that that’s a social dynamic that exists), Gen Z recognizes that “pretty privilege” is real and is ok with using it.
But yes I def agree that most women recognize the many downsides to marrying rich. And thanks for reading and commenting :)
LOLL wow the substack algorithm really does all kinds of wonders with what it pushes into my timeline — not me reading this 4 months after the discourse has discoursed 😂😂
I’ve been hung up on how you’ve framed sexuality in this piece but reading this comment helped me better understand where you’re coming from.
We know that Gen Z is less sexually active at their age than previous generations were. Centering your argument around sexuality tacitly implies these Gen Z women are acknowledging that the exchange of sex for access to privilege and wealth is worth it for them. I don’t get the sense that any of these girls are that conscious and clear eyed about the dynamic at play here.
But if I’m reading your take correctly it’s really more about the willingness to center sexuality and femininity in their personal brand. It’s about leveraging femininity in a way that’s tantamount to cosplaying whatever flavor of sexuality best resonates with their target audience (both online and irl).
And that nuance imo is where I think it would have been really interesting for you to dive more into — Exploring how shifting cultural, political and technological factors are changing the zeitgeist around what kinds of narratives about women in the pursuit of power are acceptable to uplift and celebrate.
Amy, your perspective here is super interesting. As someone who has spent the past few years marketing to Gen Z, I completely agree that they’re hard to pin down. They’ve grown up in a world where social media and the need to be ‘visible’ have never been optional, making popularity almost a default aspiration. How do you think they reconcile this desire to be popular with other core values like authenticity or individuality? And do you see a point where the pendulum might swing away from social visibility altogether?
Thanks! I find it fascinating how, in many ways, Gen Z’s become popular by being “authentic” and unfiltered on social media and having a “unique” aesthetic. (So popularity, instead of suppressing individuality, ostensibly requires one to individuate more… except, certain forms of individual taste are “cooler” than others…)
"I actually don’t think so. Whereas millennial women see being a trophy wife (or even just a plain ol’ stay-at-home mom) as a shameful position of subordination to their husbands, Gen Z seems to find a certain power in being a trophy wife."
I don't think it is surprising that rent-seeking is more appealing than a commitment to equality as a principal that sometimes means you don't get more rent. This is not feminism; you can't just call anything that women do 'feminism'. This is what came before feminism.
Calling this (anti)-“feminism” more grounded in reality is laughable. There’s a reason 50s housewives weren’t happy. Because this deprives you of real power, because it relies on fulfilling a role in the bedroom (see: marriage as a form of acceptable prostitution), because it will never last, because for most women, they won’t even have that “power” which comes from “molding men”—because it’s generally a rich man who does the molding.
the substack algorithm recommended this to me, and without any desire to be needlessly mean: you are wrong. most crucially, you misread the vibe; it might be because you are not gen Z. the girls in these videos are playing along with viral catchphrases and aesthetics, holding these memes weakly and posing with them for TikTok’s fantasy realm. they might as well be roleplaying. memes are not wholly meaningless, but they need a rich, expansive, playful analysis. by themselves, read with the literal-minded and inelegant eye of this piece, floating images tell us almost nothing about the world as it is. bumbling internet critics will use them to come up with a "theory" about "culture" only for their false insights to be blown away when the next meme comes along
you also fail to adequately contextualize your argument... “[young women] no longer think it taboo to contemplate using their sex appeal in their favor to get the things they want” is something that could have been written in the 1970s, and i think it might even be lifted from a 90s recap of sex and the city. this is not some post-feminist truth. the belief that women get ahead by using their bodies is very old and widespread, almost as old and widespread as the belief that skinny = hot. the fact that young people are repeating it tells us simply that we still live in a world where these ideas are still in circulation. no ideological movement forward here, only the rattle of the same old ideas in tiktok's cacophony machine
you also fail 2 address the weakest points of your argument. it's below us to go into the obvious dangers of marrying rich, so i'll go into the 2nd weakest point: in looking at the woke era you make a really common and simple mistake. you say that millennial feminism lied, but in fact its messages, like body positivity and “leaning in”, began as attempts to reckon with how sex and sexism intersected with social dynamics. in the late 2000s, they didn't say "being pretty doesn't impact your social status", they said "being pretty impacts your social status quite dramatically, and women waste a lot of time and effort trying to be pretty, how might we change this". obviously then the whole thing became corporatized, increasingly shallow, the subject of obnoxious marketing campaigns and soft-pink pantsuit photoshoots, etc
anyway there is no real power in starving yourself into weakness and no real power in flirting your way to the top (again, women know that the "skinny = hot" formula is as efficiently enforced as the "sexual woman = whore" formula. this, too, hasn't changed). beauty is not power, though i see why you might think it is. beauty is simply a valuable currency. if beauty were real power, it would not depreciate with time, and you wouldn’t need men (your boss, your husband) as intermediaries through which to enact your will into the world; you could just enact it yourself. a lot of the dynamics you describe here are incompatible with stuff like dignity and self-respect. women know this and that's why they're not fleeting the workforce and instead they're 4B-posting (another mostly meaningless tiktok meme). your post is written as if you were simply making an observation, but you also seem to think that this (inaccurately read) shift is good, and even a form of progress. it's very weird
anyway, power and freedom, that’s what matters. i’m an immigrant + in college. my mother still remembers friends of her mother who were beaten to death by their husbands. those women couldn’t leave: they had no money of their own, struggled finding jobs, and nobody believed them when they asked for help. that's actually how many women lived in the world before the last 60 years. you and me and these girls are not immune to this fate. in fact, as fun as it is to talk about becoming a “pink pilates princess” and "using pretty privilege" or whatever, we are closer to it than we might like to think
Thank you thank you thank you!!! The over romanticisation of being a “Pilates princess” and having a “soft life” is so old and I’m bored of seeing people frame it as some sort of post-feminist revelation when it’s not. It’s old and it’s got to go… counterculture is a serious illness
Thank you. And also, lots of people are just dumb. Including lots of young women. And people shouldn't bother thinking too hard about what people with not much in their brain do or click "like" for on a screen.
Criticism is fine but this is needlessly mean and aggressive, it’s a substack article. She’s merely pointing out a trend that is happening, not saying it’s good or bad, and you’re conflating it with how you think things should be
How is it mean and aggressive
This comment restored my faith in humanity after reading the post
me: its very common for "culture writers" to look at three tiktoks and extrapolate wildly
some AI pfp guy: no, look at this article, which looks at three tiktoks and extrapolates wildly
i know it gets clicks to claim that women yearn to be tradwives, but women are not leaving the workforce en masse; there is simply no economic incentive to. that's a belief based on your perception of how things should be, rather than acknowledging the reality of a legitimate societal trend
The unacknowledged reality is that few young women are sufficiently attractive to garner the rich guy, fewer will marry one and most all of them will be ejected sometime in their 30’s (if they make it that far). The other reality is that there are proportionately fewer rich men given the declining numbers of college-educated straight men. It’s going to be interesting in 10 years….
hahaha interesting. that seems reasonable
Precisely. These lessons are old as time, but apparently need to be relearned the hard way every couple generations. If you’re selling your youth and hotness, it has an expiration date. When you divorce (and presumably these rich men are smart enough to insist on a prenup), you’re out of luck. The business degree won’t count for squat if you’ve been out of the workforce for 10 years. The hotness is gone. And you’ve got an extravagant sense of entitlement vastly out of proportion to your appeal.
The takeaway is there will be an aristocracy
Wdym?
Fewer rich men, smaller dating pool, less job opportunities - and youth attitudes are catching up with it all. I feel like it’s headed in one direction, and that will be the end of class mobility
I have some hesidency writing this as a man, but I think you're insufficiently harsh here. I have some sympathy with women doing what is good for themselves, but I can't imagine building a good society where an important way for women to achieve success and status is to marry rich men and play on their sexuality to achieve success. I think that promoting this is, in economist speak, defecting in a prisoners dilemma, and in activist speak is failing in a duty of solidarity.
i absolutely agree that in a good society, women should not be primarily achieving success by marrying rich men. but i do think it's reasonable for Gen Z women to acknowledge the sexual dynamics at play in their social and workplace interactions, rather than burying their heads in the sand
This kind of philosophy isn't merely acknowledging the sexual dynamics, it's falling prostrate before them and surrendering in a way that ensures they continue. What you're describing may indeed be a form of power, but it is NOT strength, which is the thing that can't be taken from you. Power is fragile, strength is not. Also, I really don't think we should assume tik tok posters represent a whole generation...this seems naive
I think you're just jelly that you can't just marry a billionaire and retire at age 22
Thanks for the feedback
That doesn’t happen irl
As the saying goes, marry for money and you'll earn every penny.
Actually we are becoming Russia, and this is just another example of it
I agree that zoomer "feminism" (?) is different from millennial feminism. However, I believe a secondary explanation of the impressions this post is based on (expected to see bunch of hate comments under zoomer content which was unacceptable per millennial standards) is due to how social media algorithms have changed over the years.
Early stage (2010s) social media used to pitch controversial content, since a war in the comment section meant "traffic" and "user engagement". But now, it seems like the algorithms changed such that users simply get served the content they like. We now have assortative mating of social media users and content.
Part of that is that now there is simply more content available, so every user can be served some content they like. Also, algorithms have become significantly better at profiling and predicting what someone will like. But I think it's more because the vibe has changed and people are now sick and fed up with arguing online - they just want to see stuff they like, not stuff they hate and argue about online.
This is possibly also a generational thing - zoomers don't want the drama, they just want a calm, peaceful and happy life, so the algorithm just sends them the content they like. And this is why you generally should see less negative comments online, especially under zoomer content.
I see it here on Substack as well - as I started my newsletter I imagined that one day, a war will break out in the comment section of one of my posts and it will make my post go viral. This never happened - eventually, some of my posts became popular, but simply because a lot of people liked and shared them.
It's going to get interesting as most of Gen Z gets older and begins to realize they'll never be with a rich guy who can give them that life. Will they see themselves as failures? Too ugly to have secured the rich husband? Resentful? How does their eventual relationship look (if any) when it's with a guy who can't give them that life? Unless they have a total change of heart I can't imagine it being a healthy relationship. Who wants to be in a relationship with someone who resents you because you aren't rich enough?
It could get weird.
Really great analysis of the TikTok girls. I’m never on there so now I know who to turn to whenever I need Gen Z trends demystified.
I feel your article looked at a specific subset of girls who are more open to these transactions, and then generalized their opinions to all of the Gen Z girls. I do agree with the overall point - in the modern era, hypergamy does allow women the privilege to marry into better positions. However, I think it’s primarily the ones with lower morality who are actually taking up the offer. I would suspect that there are others who are still cognizant of other factors and give weight to factors outside of wealth/status. There’s other negative downstream effects of making this trade off (man may not be loyal, the lifestyle will be much different than what they’re used to, their friend group may view her as a sellout), and I imagine women who are older may be more realistic about these factors.
Hmm so I’m not saying that all Gen Z girls are looking to marry rich or otherwise engage in hypergamy. My point is that Gen Z is more open to using their sexuality to get things in general. For example—maybe if you dress better at the office, people will just generally like you more, and be more willing to get coffee with you, which could lead to more serendipitous opportunities in your career. You don’t need to be literally sleeping with your boss or marrying the CEO to take advantage of your looks—there are many, much more subtle ways to gain power by being hot—and my core observation is that, while millennials shied away from any form of that (to the point of even denying that that’s a social dynamic that exists), Gen Z recognizes that “pretty privilege” is real and is ok with using it.
But yes I def agree that most women recognize the many downsides to marrying rich. And thanks for reading and commenting :)
Exactly. Case in point…the fact that “office siren” attire was a HUGE trend among gen z, and even exists in the first place.
LOLL wow the substack algorithm really does all kinds of wonders with what it pushes into my timeline — not me reading this 4 months after the discourse has discoursed 😂😂
I’ve been hung up on how you’ve framed sexuality in this piece but reading this comment helped me better understand where you’re coming from.
We know that Gen Z is less sexually active at their age than previous generations were. Centering your argument around sexuality tacitly implies these Gen Z women are acknowledging that the exchange of sex for access to privilege and wealth is worth it for them. I don’t get the sense that any of these girls are that conscious and clear eyed about the dynamic at play here.
But if I’m reading your take correctly it’s really more about the willingness to center sexuality and femininity in their personal brand. It’s about leveraging femininity in a way that’s tantamount to cosplaying whatever flavor of sexuality best resonates with their target audience (both online and irl).
And that nuance imo is where I think it would have been really interesting for you to dive more into — Exploring how shifting cultural, political and technological factors are changing the zeitgeist around what kinds of narratives about women in the pursuit of power are acceptable to uplift and celebrate.
Amy, your perspective here is super interesting. As someone who has spent the past few years marketing to Gen Z, I completely agree that they’re hard to pin down. They’ve grown up in a world where social media and the need to be ‘visible’ have never been optional, making popularity almost a default aspiration. How do you think they reconcile this desire to be popular with other core values like authenticity or individuality? And do you see a point where the pendulum might swing away from social visibility altogether?
Thanks! I find it fascinating how, in many ways, Gen Z’s become popular by being “authentic” and unfiltered on social media and having a “unique” aesthetic. (So popularity, instead of suppressing individuality, ostensibly requires one to individuate more… except, certain forms of individual taste are “cooler” than others…)
This is such an interesting cultural shift. Great article.
I’m a millennial and I agree with your assessment.
Hi I am actually writing about this phenomenon on my blog. We are coming full-circle to Trad-Wife aesthetics
"I actually don’t think so. Whereas millennial women see being a trophy wife (or even just a plain ol’ stay-at-home mom) as a shameful position of subordination to their husbands, Gen Z seems to find a certain power in being a trophy wife."
I don't think it is surprising that rent-seeking is more appealing than a commitment to equality as a principal that sometimes means you don't get more rent. This is not feminism; you can't just call anything that women do 'feminism'. This is what came before feminism.
I don’t know why the algorithm pointed me here. I’ll just say this before I leave: Woof.
Yup u nailed gen z feminism. I love it here.
Love it
thank you!
This darked me out so much. This take is woefully reductive. Being honest about disordered eating = a new way to be feminist? Good actual lord.
Calling this (anti)-“feminism” more grounded in reality is laughable. There’s a reason 50s housewives weren’t happy. Because this deprives you of real power, because it relies on fulfilling a role in the bedroom (see: marriage as a form of acceptable prostitution), because it will never last, because for most women, they won’t even have that “power” which comes from “molding men”—because it’s generally a rich man who does the molding.