The viral trend of “girl math”, in which women justify purchases that they can’t afford, needs to die, even if it’s in jest.
Many of you may remember—or have heard about—the talking Barbie doll that said (among other things), “Math class is tough!”
Yes, the 1980s and 1990s were a different time. But still, this wasn’t the 1950s, the days of Leave It To Beaver and would-be tradwives; this happened in my lifetime. That feels different.
It’s not just that a Barbie doll said a sentiment about being challenged with math; I’m sure many girls and boys had the same thought at some point. My issue is that a marketing team decided that, out of all the possible phrases that this Barbie doll could say, the best way to help girls identify with—and buy—this doll was to assume that the average girl thought math class is hard. That was the important sentiment to use to connect with girls!?
This cuts deep for me, as someone who studied math in school, who loves math dearly, and thinks that some of it is at least as beautiful as any well-loved poetry or painting. Is it hard? Sure, lots of things are hard. But if you think a whole subject is hard, it’s because the teachers suck. Come at me if you disagree.
Anyway, I couldn’t help but think about this old Barbie doll over the recent-ish trend of “girl math”.
Now this is something that truly needs to die.
What is “Girl math”?
“Girl math” is a viral TikTok trend that started in 2023. (Yes, that’s old as far as trends go, but bad ideas rarely die a quick death, and this one seems to be unkillable.)
It explains the process by which women “[work] out just how expensive an item truly is and [justify] it step by step until, as the gals say, it’s basically free.”
Examples of “Girl math”
So you have trains of thought like this:
“You and your mom both wear it, so it’s half price.”
“If you return something and buy something at the same time, it was free.”
What is going on here?
“Girl math” is basically using mental gymnastics to justify bad financial decisions.
Now, women don’t have a lock on justifying bad decisions, of course, but that’s what is so challenging about this particular trend. Women are, in effect, appearing to use the fact that they’re women to justify making the decisions that they make.
And to me, that always sounds a little too close to something like, “I’m a helpless little lady, and can’t wrap my head around those fancy concepts like numbers!”
That is basically a scrambled version of the Barbie doll saying, “Math class is hard!” You go girl! Fail that math class! All the girls understand.
And that’s why this is a little horrifying.
Is this satire?
Now, to be honest, I’m not even sure if all—or even most—of the videos that claim to be using “girl math” are being serious or not.
With social media, the pull to be outrageous in order to get likes and attention is strong, and not spending much time on social media, I can’t be sure when someone is being serious or not. But the urge for me to wonder if these people are as ill-informed as they sound, or just making a big joke, is high here. I just don’t want to believe it.
Stepping lightly around the gender issue
There is a huge gender gap in financial literacy. Here are a few choice statistics:
- More than 1 in 5 (22%) men demonstrate very high financial literacy compared to 11% of women
- Women see their household income fall by 41%, compared to men (21%) in the year following a divorce
- Women are also more likely to be considered “financially vulnerable” than men (24% versus 17%)
These are structural problems that need addressing, and they need addressing right now. Women are more than 50% of the population; we can’t have more than half of us be less educated around money.
I work primarily with women in my coaching practice. The reason this works out that way is because I work in behavioral, emotion-focused financial health, and I find that women in general are much more receptive to this kind of work.
But I also see it as important work to overcome information garbage like “girl math”.
More financial nihilism
Ultimately, what the “girl math” trend may be is nothing more than a gender-flavored version of financial nihilism, the idea that nothing matters, that we’re all screwed anyway. So we might as well buy that expensive thing; we’re already in debt to last a lifetime.
And while I understand the sentiment, it just feels sad. It indicates that people have given up on getting ahead, financially. For anyone to say that is challenging, but when the subculture is specifically about women giving up, that feels even harder to accept, given the persistent gender gap in financial wellness.
It’s a challenging world out there. We need to do everything we can to educate everyone (men and women) on good financial habits so that we can be more powerful in society, not less.
As far as I’m concerned, having a zero balance credit card, no car loan, and paid-off student loans is the girl math I want to see.
Leave a Reply