The “(insert adjective) girl” doctrine, a small flame sparked by centuries of gendered history, was roared into a blazing fire through social media trends. When we focus our attention on the outputs of these trends, rather than the aesthetics they encourage, we can see who and what is left burnt. So how can we understand this trend, and how can we talk about this in the context of gender-coded social practice?
Who is the “Clean Girl” and what is she hiding?
The notorious “Clean Girl” aesthetic, also referred to as the “off-duty model” look is marketed as a set of femininity or identity only accessible to White, young, thin, cis women. The “Clean Girl” has dewy skin (provided to her by her expansive skincare collection), her makeup is minimal and invisible to the naked eye (yet high-end and complete), and she wears branded clothing and jewelry (all purchased new to her).
This trend in the context of psychology
Maliyah Ross, a student of psychology, is within the age and gender range that social media pushes the “Clean Girl” agenda onto. Maliyah described your common “Clean Girl” as a “White girl, (with) good skin, zero acne, slicked back hair”. The elevation of this aesthetic “makes people who are not as wealthy look bad” says Maliyah. The trend refocuses the market of desirability to center around extensions of wealth. The phad develops -in young girls- an insatiable appetite for the new thing that will take them a step closer to the “Clean Girl”, whether it be yoga pants, blush paint, or cuticle cream. The Sisyphean cycle of spending is born.
How does TikTok promote this image?
The TikTok algorithm will help with this cycle of spending, showing you how to achieve her: what products to buy, which designer to choose, what scent to wear. Naturally, the “Clean Girl” aesthetic is something that can only be purchased. TikTok, however, will not show you her destructive ideology that wades into the world of Capitalist-based ageism, racism, and classism.
The “Clean Girl” aesthetic favors Nordic and Scandinavian features, elevating a Eurocentric standard of beauty that relies on Whiteness. It is a trade economy. The trend steals the brown lip liner, full eyebrows, and slick back bun from the long-standing culture of Black and Brown women, and in return, it expels Black and Brown women from the parameters of the aesthetic.
What is the ‘Housewife to Clean Girl’ pipeline?
Ultimately, the “Clean Girls” are hurting themselves just along with everyone else. The categorization of personhood into a “type” (Clean Girl or City Girl or…) is a catalyst for a mass erasure of individuality. Yet, the population most widely impressed with these ideologies is young women. If we think about it, women have often been subjected to a title as a means of identification, beginning with the first cultural label for women: housewife.
This domestic culture, coming to a head in the 1950s, created what we can call a cookie-cutter principle for womanhood. Yet, when the working women emerged, the cookie cutter split into two shapes: stars and hearts let’s say. There was a set precedent of how to be a good housewife, and so a precedent of how to be a working woman was molded. As feminist ideology and gendered culture shifted, the harsh shapes of the cookie-cutter broke. However, the general rhetoric that instructed women how to be still lingered; the lasting grip leaving fingerprints on gender-coded TikToks.
Why do women try to meet this beauty trend standard?
But why do women flock to these boxes that group and exclude based on principal interests? Much like there was literal safety within a housewife role, there is safety within a classification. The “Clean Girl” phad is “just another trend to fit in socially” says Maliyah, yet its inherent focus on aesthetics creates a value system that rewards young women within its hold and punishes the girls who aren’t.
Maliyah explains that “I feel like as women, we compare ourselves to other women a lot, if you don’t look like that -to say in simple terms- you’re not cool”. Being cool and fitting in are synonymous, and universally appealing. However, young girls are given the most strict criteria to reach this goal, resulting in constant self-critique and loss of individual identity.
Conclusion
If you are not a “Clean Girl”, then what are you? A Dirty Girl? The trend is, in itself, a socially constructed aesthetical pit hole that’s presence or absence does not define a young girl. We are not (insert adjective) girls. We are just girls.
