THIS IS EXTREMISM (or Extremism in Wonderland) (or Alice in Extremism) (or insert your own title, it’s your story anyway)

by Zaria Jankelovitz-Gelvan

"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad." "How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.” - LEWIS CARROLL, Alice in Wonderland 

“If you were to ask me how I am I would say...but if you were to ask me how I really am I would say” “Girl Math!” “I met my younger self for coffee” “#girlboss #destroythepatriarchy” “what I eat in a day as a” “#cancelled”  

And then you scroll again.  

But the truth is you didn’t meet yourself for coffee. Girl math is the math that took us to the moon and gave us our greatest discoveries. And comparing your eating behaviour to someone you’ve never met doesn’t add or decrease your worth. If you open the door, you find a much larger passageway behind it. If you fall down the rabbit hole, you may find it never ends. The media is breeding a generation of extremism, and it's time we readjust the scales. 

True, one need not cast their memories so far back to return to the traditional ideals of a patriarchal house. With 2.5 children and a puppy to accompany the backyard, women were homely, infantilised and gloriously oppressed. What could ever save us? You guessed it! “#girlboss”. The #girlboss doesn’t need a man. The #girlboss knows what to say in a conference room. The #girlboss is always organised, groomed, and empowered. The #girlboss never says no to another job, even if it also means another all nighter. The #girlboss is perhaps ultimately a corporate capitalist climber, and that corporate society is undeniably always patriarchal. Congrats! Modern feminism tells you you’re a money-hungering capitalist if you adopt this lifestyle and a slave to the patriarchy if you don’t. When women are constantly angry at each other, there isn’t enough time to be angry at the structures that put them there.  

Growing “curiouser and curiouser” we dawn on the glowing orange hues of “Ballerina Farm”, “Nara Smith” and the #tradwife Tik Tok trend there seems to be a saving grace for liberal feminism. Now, women can dress in flowing dresses and bake sourdough without a care about money, responsibility, or professional occupation. Indeed, the ability to choose one's own life path is a luxury ... ahem ... human right, afforded to women by the battles of early feminism. But when we look a little closer at #tradwife you’ll start to notice most of it is subtly pushing Mormon ideals and a return to fundamentalist religious gender roles. While many may be attracted to the pretty packaging of homemade cereal for your children; the political underpinnings are difficult to ignore yet incredibly easy to brush aside.  

Yet is it not easier to ride the collectivised wave of reliance on another? Is home making not an incredibly strenuous task in and of itself? And the answer to both these questions would be yes. Capitalist “finance bros”, crippling abortion rights, and an environment that seems to be carefully balanced on the edge of a knife – the planet appears increasingly hostile to young women. Staying at home in turn becomes increasingly appealing. However, need I remind you; this is extremism. We are not only pushing “stay-at-home moms” but emphasis and extremity on “tradition”. You cannot merely provide your children with food, it should be organic, free range, GMO free, and made entirely from scratch. It is not enough to only subscribe to traditional standards, but your outfits should be; designer, appealing (yet never overly seductive), elegant, and styled. The tightrope line is cautiously drawn out, and the crocodile-river of hate comments awaits you on either side.  

Naturally, of course, these wavering ideals of womanhood do not merely exist within the segregated lines of married adulthood. What is perhaps more worrying is the rising trend of the “stay at home girlfriend”. If the work and stress of homemaking didn’t sound like enough now you can enjoy it without a legal document to ensure your security! There is no doubt that financial care can come from other means, but young women relinquishing all financial control strikes up a complex conversation of how a capitalist society has led to a reinvention of “the hidden load”.  

You have opened the bottle titled “take me”, we may now follow our White Rabbit down to what may appear less sinister, “Girl Math”. But look deeper into the Queen of Heart’s eyes – this game reeks with foul play. The ever-trustful Wikipedia defines “girl math” as a means to “describe rationalizations by young women to justify indulgent and potentially irresponsible spending habits”. To truly paint this picture, look at BuzzFeed's top 5 “Girl Maths” moments:  

1. Always pay more for free shipping. 

2. If I preload my account, it's free. 

3. Anything bought in advance is free. 

4. Anything under $5 is free. 

5. If you pay with cash, it is free. 

Seems perfectly logical? No? Like it or not the division between “Boy Math” and “Girl Math” has laid down its roots in the media presence. I am not suggesting there is no room for humour in what is an often nightmare society but as we doom scroll, what we digest matters. As we meet ourselves pre-metamorphosis, there is nothing clearer to admit than we are all afraid. We consume a diet of either extremising that fear or radicalising its rationality.  

Speaking of what we digest, on this train of fanaticism, to your right you will observe the aptly titled trend of “What I Eat In A Day”, and the army of copy-cat behaviour and perfectionism that follows. If you want to know the dietary requirements for the “that girl” aesthetic or what it takes to have “#VictoriaSecretAbs” chances are there’s an extremist Tik Tok out there for you. The trouble is there is no bottle labelled “eat me” to shrink you down to size. Instead, there is a fanatic obsession with macro counting. Whether you want to embrace the infantilisation of obesity or the equally troubling “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” you may only exist on the extremities. When we’re hyper focused on how our bodies look, how can we focus on who actually owns them?  

`I think you might do something better with the time,' [Alice] said, `than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.' 

To be isto assign a label, to not be is to assign one as well. When the general zeitgeist of social media moves from the tiniest drops of liberalism to opening the gates to flood back into conservative rhetoric; we need all be wary. As New York Magazine publishes their “Cruel Kids Table” aptly captioned “out late with the young right as they contemplate cultural domination” we observe the prodigal return of a figure whose name starts with His and ends with Story. Have you met her? Well, she’s knocking. Just because the roses are painted red doesn’t mean they’re not really white, and despite new Republican dominion teenagers being dressed as “That Girls” in Shein they’re still pining for political uniformity.  

It is easy to say that these trends or hashtags are “just not that deep”. And of course, you may utter “’important--unimportant—unimportant—important’ as if [you] were trying which word sounded best”, as many times as you please. I only wish to offer you the looking glass of which to examine. What defines a culture is the media and what defines a future is the culture. This is not a dream we get to wake up from. This is not a game of cards you may stop playing. You may not go back to yesterday (you were, of course, a different person then), but you may briefly visit tomorrow, and perhaps there lies a balance to equate the scales.