Every time I open TikTok, a new set of words pops up, redefining girlhood in ways that feel both fascinating and troubling. What once seemed like a shared, intuitive experience now appears fragmented, subject to an emerging epistemic field where influencers dissect every nuance.

Are you fox pretty or deer pretty? Winter pretty or summer pretty? Girl pretty or boy pretty? Are you cute or hot? Have you tapped into your divine female energy? Are you a high-value woman? Girl dinner, girl math, I am “just a girl” or “girl, so confusing.” With all of its complexities and nuances, I am not surprised that girlhood attracts attention, but I am startled by the type of attention it has attracted.

We have gone from challenging objectification to presenting reductive categories like “deer pretty” or “fox pretty”. The rise of terms like “girl dinner” trivializes serious conversations about eating disorders, while phrases such as “The war in Ukraine explained for the girlies” dilute global politics into consumable content for social media, rooted in the assumption that women cannot inherently understand politics, so there needs to be a customized approach.

A video titled “How to get princess treatment from anyone – high-value women” caught my attention. Apparently, a woman needs to be “very demure, very mindful” to receive this so-called princess treatment. A high-value woman is expected to be quiet, agreeable, and polished – her worth is defined by how much she erases her own thoughts and opinions, becoming a passive decorative plus-one.

In return, the princess does not drive, work, or bring her wallet – she receives gifts and lives in a custom-made dollhouse that she can inhabit, but never own. There is nothing fundamentally wrong about doing these things for a partner – I would go as far as to say that this is not about the exaggerated level of respect but basic behaviors we simply do for the people we love, care for, and respect. Picking people up from the airport, treating them to a meal, or getting them a small gift seems like normal gestures of a regular friendship.

However, the ‘princess treatment’ discourse feels completely tone-deaf to the realities women face in heterosexual dating and relationships.

The online narratives of princess treatment encourage and promote the idea that women need to be passive and attended to, rather than empowered and treated with respect and care while having agency in their relationships. Frankly, women are so dehumanized on a daily basis in the world, that I believe us striving to be treated like princesses is skipping the fact that we are not always treated as regular human beings to begin with.

Historically, financial dependence trapped women in abusive relationships. The fight for property, wages, and credit cards was a fight for autonomy, safety, and the freedom to make independent decisions.

Perpetuating the male breadwinner model as a part of princess treatment and something to be celebrated completely disregards the realities of being a financially dependent woman. It disregards the reasons why domestic violence survivors cannot leave their abusive partners, why women do not get an equal say in many households, and why divorce rates rise as the female standard of living goes up. I am not implying that this is the case for every financially dependent woman, but it is a harsh reality for many. A harsh reality that we throw a pink blanket over and call it princess treatment.

Splitting the bill becomes contentious when TikTok creators argue that being a girl is expensive due to girlhood “maintenance costs”: lip fillers, lash lifts, nails, make-up, hair extensions, waxing appointments, etc. This narrative implies that:

a) Femininity requires these performances b) They exist exclusively for the male gaze c) They should be traded for financial support—reinforcing a harmful financial inequality between men and women.

If we are following the financial equity argument, we might as well use period product taxes, pink tax, maternal wage penalties, and gender pay gap as the reasons, not a lash lift and a lip filler. By promoting ideas that this is what girlhood is and requires, it excludes any woman who does not partake in any of these practices, disregards that they might be done for oneself rather than for someone else, and most importantly, implies that the performance of femininity is something to be paid for by the male gaze holder.

Princess treatment is a band-aid for deeper inequalities in heterosexual relationships — well-being, decision-making power, leisure time, and emotional labor. To suggest that it will ultimately improve the quality of life for women is naïve, to say the least.

Girlhood is not hard because a lash lift is expensive.

Girlhood is hard because when I was a good student in elementary school, I had to sit next to the biggest bullies of the boys to be a “good influence on them”. From the ripe age of 7, I was taught to be responsible for a man’s behavior.

Girlhood is hard because my male acquaintances keep saying wildly objectifying comments whenever a girl passes by and they think it is funny that I get mad.

Girlhood is hard because of all the times I have been out of breath from speed-walking the road home because I have felt genuinely unsafe.

Girlhood is hard because of the imposter syndrome that I see every day in myself, in my friends, and in my classmates – because we are taught to be humble, to not take up too much space, and to never take much pride in our achievements.

Girlhood is hard because 80% of auto-immune diseases are diagnosed in women, but takes years to be discovered because of medical gaslighting.

Buying flowers is a lovely gesture of care, just as picking up someone from the airport or treating them to a meal – but these acts are very far from knight-in-shining-armor acts of feminism or allyship. They do not make you a princess, they make you a girl who has received flowers.

True empowerment lies not in performing for someone else's gaze but in reclaiming autonomy, complexity, and humanity. Girlhood, and by extension womanhood, deserves more than a superficial rebranding. It requires a transformation that recognizes our full personhood, beyond aesthetics and passive roles.