Are Soft Girls the Gateway to #Tradwives

Why more young women are checking out of hustle culture......

Photo by Tetiana Kobzeva on Unsplash

What the hell is a soft girl?

What do you think about when you hear the term ? I think about my squishy post baby belly that feels like a bowl of cookie batter when I poke it. But that is not what soft girl is referring to on the social medias. A soft girl on TikTok and Instagram is a young woman who no longer wants to hustle.

She doesn't want to be a girl boss. In fact, a lot of them do not want to work for pay at all. She just wants to perfect her skincare regime and do all the Pilates.

I just read a great, great piece on Glamour by the author and reporter Stephanie McNeal all about the soft girls.

For many Gen Z women who have entered the workforce during the past few years, their greatest dream is increasingly to have the chance to achieve nothing, at least by traditional capitalist standards.

Welcome to the world of the soft girl, the lifestyle choice that many young women are now holding up as an ideal. The soft girl doesn't value the grind or getting ahead. She prioritizes slow living. Her days are filled with a nearly obsessive focus on self care, from making the perfect morning smoothie, to cozy cardio. Long term, the soft girl dreams of making dinner for her husband and, if she's got them, staying home with her kids. She's not interested in making partner or founding her own company. She's in touch with her feminine energy, her menstrual cycle, and her moods.

Yeah. There are genuinely young women on social media who are striving to be trophy wives. And here's the thing. I want to send a little wake up call to them.

Girls, there are not that many rich dudes out there just dying to take care of you.

I'm all for slowing down the hustle culture. It fucked me over in a lot of ways. I'm also for leaning out a little bit, for finding joy and bliss in your home and being a mom. , but I also really want these young women to realize that they have to be financially independent.

They have to make their own security and their own money because ultimately the world is not going to take care of you and a man probably will not either. These rich men that you're looking for are unicorns.

There has to be a middle ground here. Because my generation, my lean, in hustle culture generation, did experience burnout and we did get screwed by a corporate America that thinks women are expendable.

But is there a balance between leaning in and leaning out?