My verdict on Petal
Favorite tracks: "never get over me," "like i do," "nowhere, nobody"
Lowest moments: "hate that i made you love me," "warning signs (interlude)"

A friend once told me the most interesting parts of life are a bit messy. Ariana Grande’s work has always been a testament to this. I wouldn’t call myself a stan; I’m more of a longtime fan of her acting and her music. While I try to avoid being parasocial, her music has always reminded me that success and uncertainty can exist at the same time.

From her first album—Yours Truly—produced by the icon Babyface, I knew Grande would reach lifetime stardom. Her vocals and talent as a producer have moved her into a category where she is only truly in competition with herself. While her first single “Put Your Hearts Up” leaned on the 1950s and 1960s doo-wop aesthetic, “Yours Truly” gave us a glimpse into her inner world as her love letters touted 90s R&B melodies. In her second studio album, Grande gave us “her everything” as she fully committed to shedding the doo-wop sound. The tracks on this album showed us a theme that would follow Grande’s music for her entire career: the idea that you can be in a partnership but still constantly be begged to be loved.

Since then, Grande has experienced multiple triumphs and traumas while on display for the world to devour. Her eighth studio album Petal gives us another look into the singer’s mind following her divorce, blockbuster leading role, and continued controversy surrounding her physical appearance.

Petal promised to be Grande’s most unfiltered record yet—her first album written entirely on her own. Instead, it exposes both the strengths and the blind spots of her voice as a songwriter.

Holding the pen

It is impossible to review Ariana Grande’s work without the context around it. Nearly every album Grande has produced has been tied to her romantic or familial relationships and what she learns about herself through the hardship. The difference in her first six albums is that she was not the lead songwriter, which is surprisingly uncommon knowledge among listeners. The difference becomes clear when looking at the credited songwriting teams:

• Yours Truly Songwriters: Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, Harmony Samuels, Leon Thomas III, and Ariana Grande

• My Everything Songwriters: Tommy Brown, Victoria Monét, Tayla Parx, and Ariana Grande

• Dangerous Woman Songwriters: Max Martin, Savan Kotecha, and Victoria Monét, and Ariana Grande

• Sweetener Songwriters: Pharrell Williams, Max Martin, Ilya Salmanzadeh, and Ariana Grande

• thank you, next Songwriters: Victoria Monét, Tayla Parx, Tommy Brown, and Ariana Grande

• Positions Songwriters: Victoria Monét, Tayla Parx, Nija Charles, and Ariana Grande

• eternal sunshine Songwriters: Ariana Grande, Max Martin, Ilya Salmanzadeh, and Oscar Görres

• petal Songwriter: Ariana Grande

Grande has been involved with the writing of all of her albums, pulling in intimate details from her experiences into the collaborative lyrics. But with this project, she is taking the songwriting reins and described the record as a “writing experiment.”

“It’s basically about something that is full of life and growing through the cracks of something cold and hard and challenging. It’s kind of about breaking up with all different kinds of negative attachments, whether it’s my own monsters in my own head, external voices, things that no longer serve me,” Grande explains. “It’s a little feral as well. It’s definitely from a place that I have been maybe like too shy or polite to tap into before and this just kind of feels like ‘f*ck it.’”

However, the songwriting itself falls flat in this project, especially compared to previous albums. Not every moment needs to be one of growth, but each project from musicians shares a different aspect of their life and journey. Dangerous Woman was Grande fully stepping out of her Nickelodeon persona; thank you, next was our first glimpse into her establishing her own boundaries; Positions allowed her to embrace her sexuality in her marriage; and eternal sunshine showcased her healed relationship with her father.

I walk away from this project somehow feeling more aware of Grande’s actions and attitude towards the world than she seems to possess herself. Grande is frustrated with the conversation surrounding her relationships, body, and place in the music industry. And that’s completely understandable. Misogyny is one of the music industry’s biggest issues. What surprises me most is not that Grande is angry—she has every reason to be. It’s that the album rarely turns that anger inward.

After her first album, Grande’s team chose to sell access to her personal life rather than simply market a carefully constructed pop persona. In turn, her work, writing, and—it seems—sense of self are intertwined with her public image. Petal was Grande’s way of saying she wants the conversation about her personal life to stop, but is it truly possible for the singer to separate the two if her intimate world is what she has been selling fans for a decade? Her past vulnerability has allowed fans to see her to her core, and now she wants to regain control over her image. But that image has already been molded by her previous actions and her team’s marketing. Petal often blurs the line between invasive spectators and actual fans, portraying both as part of the same culture of scrutiny.

Petal isn’t truly the middle finger to haters and the industry that Grande seems to frame it as. The anger in this album is still diluted to be palatable for radio play. The project’s greatest limitation is its lack of self-reflection. Eternal sunshine and the subsequent tour were supposed to be her last public hurrahs as a recording artist before transitioning back into acting. So why is she still asking for the public’s attention when it comes to her music? Grande wants the rewards of celebrity without accepting the conditions that have always accompanied the version of celebrity she helped cultivate.

The price of vulnerability

“Kiss me” opens the album, transporting you to Grande’s psyche, showing her most intimate desires and fears as a star struggling with being perceived. Death imagery dominates the album, yet rebirth—the natural counterpart—is largely absent.

“Kiss me” Chorus:

Kiss me likе you know this is goodbye

We could try to make it all the way out

Grab me like my life is on the line

“Petal” Pre-Chorus:

‘Cause all of my favorite stories

End in some kind of catastrophe

But I don’t need someone to save me

‘Cause this music and I will never die

“Oh well” First Verse:

This is the beginning of the end I feel it, just don’t know what to say

My dead-ends are gathered around, dressed as friends

Just so I don’t get hurt again

“Nowhere, nobody Pre-Chorus and Chorus:

Tell me, why I keep on climbing just to reach the ground?

Just deep breaths, honey

There’s no more running

And there’s nowhere with nobody else that I’d rather be

I’m taking you

Deep breaths, honey (No, there’s nowhere else)

We’ve at least ‘til morning (And there is nobody)

Then there’s nowhere, nobody else that I’d rather be with

Grande repeatedly imagines disappearing, escaping, fading away, but rarely imagines who she might become afterward. The absence of rebirth imagery mirrors the album itself. Grande is saying goodbye to the woman we knew, but she hasn’t fully figured out where she wants to go next. She wants to escape the past version of herself that continues to define her. In “Freak,” the singer nods to the Greek myth of Icarus, knowing she is flying at one of the highest points of her career and seemingly begging those close to her to keep her grounded. She wants to avoid self-destruction but also pursue change and find balance between aspiration and self-preservation. That tension extends beyond the music itself and into Grande’s relationship with fame.

Grande has historically cultivated a voyeuristic relationship with her audience. She pulls listeners into her private world, only to push them away when they form opinions about the details she invited them to witness.

It’s an impossible situation that fuels speculation about the lyrics, the team working with her, and the broader discourse about whether young followers of hers should be listening to this narrative. She’s living in “paradise” according to the album’s title track, but constantly complains about the heaven she inhabits.

In the end, I walk away from Petal feeling less understood than I have after previous Ariana Grande projects. Instead of putting words to a universal feeling, the album often feels like Grande is still searching for them herself. The irony is that the conversations surrounding Petal may ultimately produce the reflection that the album itself struggles to achieve.

The sound of reinvention

While the album’s lyrical perspective feels repetitive, the production is where Grande’s talent shines. Ironically, the music constantly pushes forward while the lyrics circle the same emotional conflict.

The haunting synths and electronic foundation for the tracks move the singer’s discography further and further away from generic pop music. It’s almost as if we, the listener, are swimming in her mind. This album is vocally quieter than her previous work. There is no ballad or powerhouse moment vocally on this project. Grande spends much of the album in her lower register and airy head voice, resisting the powerhouse belts that once defined her. The layers of harmonies create competing voices, making it feel as though we’re hearing Grande’s thoughts unfold in real time rather than listening to a polished pop sound. Grande creates an atmosphere we can fall into with her rather than chasing standard singles.

Longtime fans know that this is a sound Grande has been chasing for her entire career. The singer has credited Imogen Heap numerous times as being one of her biggest inspirations. She first experimented with the sound in what would’ve been the Moonlight album (later renamed Dangerous Woman). She expanded on this sound with Sweetener and eternal sunshine, but Petal is the first album where she fully commits to it. The layered harmonies and stacked vocal textures blend into the warm, hazy synths until Grande’s voice functions as another instrument rather than simply carrying the melody. The synths feel almost ethereal and surreal, aligning with the project’s themes of drifting, uncertainty, and escapism. Despite the heavily processed production, her voice and the melody flow together to create an organic sound.

There were moments where Grande’s lyrical approach reminded me of Mariah Carey’s work. Like Mariah Carey, Grande often writes in fragments rather than linear stories. Individual moments and emotional snapshots accumulate until the listener pieces together the narrative. However, Carey often pairs intimate details with a moment of realization or self-discovery, while Petal tends to stay inside the emotion without reaching that next level of reflection.

Even when the writing loses me, Grande’s production rarely does. The sound of the album is what makes ranking these songs so difficult. Grande’s instincts as a musician continue to evolve faster than her instincts as a storyteller.

Petal is proof that Ariana Grande is still evolving. The album is filled with beautiful melodies and adventurous production. Yet its emotional perspective and writing remain stubbornly fixed on the same conflict. In Petal, Grande asks listeners to sympathize with the burden of being famous without fully reckoning with how much of her career has depended on our attention.

Great albums don’t simply tell us how an artist feels—they help us understand why they feel that way. The result is an album that was marketed as fearless while remaining emotionally guarded. Grande calls Petal her most personal record, but the album’s most honest confession may be that she doesn’t yet know who she’s becoming. Petal succeeds in creating the world Grande has spent years chasing, but it leaves the listener wondering when the artist herself will step fully into it.

Rococo, pastels, and pinks galore: OR3 is here. The long-awaited third album of Olivia Rodrigo was predicted to be the singer’s love letter to boyfriend Louis Partridge. After her first record’s story of young heartbreak and her sophomore project exploring teen angst, Livies worldwide thought Mr. So American’s album would be filled with upbeat love songs. I went into this album expecting an upbeat tempo, an acoustic guitar here and there, and stories of how the two met. Rodrigo even dropped her signature purple aesthetic for this project, painting walls around the world to mark the transition (I even got to see the Toronto wall in person).

As humans, we need to be needed, but even more so, we want to be desired. We want to be wanted by the person we are attracted to. Most love songs on the market focus on being observed by your person. Bruno Mars’ “Just the Way You Are” and Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” are excellent examples of this. We all want emotional (and physical) connection with another human whom we deem special, and the best love songs explore that.

But are these actually an honest representation of being in love?

Rodrigo starts the album jumping off the edge, diving into love. “Drop dead” reflects the reality of dating nowadays, as Olivia herself admitted to sliding into people’s DMs. We take a chance, but in a way that is still detached, protecting us from the explicit rejection we’d feel if we walked up to someone on the street. The album’s third track, “honeybee,” is the most cliché love song on the project. When our vulnerability is returned in a connection, it can make the uncertainty of opening up feel worthwhile. But the song also invites us to consider whether genuine love is built on external validation, or on the courage to be vulnerable in the first place.

While track 3 has a special place in my heart, “maggots for brains” is one of my favorites off the Girl So In Love side of the album. The lyrics move beyond codependency as Rodrigo captures the feeling of a partner eclipsing your world and becoming a kind of salvation. It’s intoxicating seeing one person as the center of your emotional universe, and the desire to be the center of theirs is equally seductive. You feel as though you’ve finally found the person who can’t live without you, too, and the all-consuming feeling becomes the silver lining that gives shape and color to the rest of life. Your person makes an otherwise dull and ordinary world feel worth inhabiting.

Across interviews, Rodrigo argues that track 7, “purple,” is the turning point to the You Seem Pretty Sad side of the album. I completely disagree. Her exploration of longing for reciprocation in the early stages of a relationship is heartbreakingly captured in “maggots for brains.” Women are still often conditioned to let their identities and autonomy soften at the edges, blending into the shape of their partner. The song shows the anxiety of dissolving into a relationship and losing sight of yourself, but also of watching your partner drift toward the endless field of other possibilities.

Tracks 8, 10, and 11 fully turn the mirror inward as she begins to admit that maybe being in a relationship won’t fix all the problems she had coming into the relationship.

Creator isittherightword offers an amazing take on track 8, “the cure,” examining the song through Olivia’s struggle with the societal expectation that romance should be the apex of a woman’s life. To them, “the cure” represents how a partner can slowly construct a sense of self-hatred within you—creating a distorted version of reality that feels internal, even when it’s been shaped externally. The analysis frames the song’s quiet and sinister tone as a form of covert narcissism, where there is no clear “smoking gun” of manipulation, but instead an environment where you are gradually positioned as the problem in the relationship. Over time, you stop questioning their behavior and begin to pathologize your own. The damage is difficult to name precisely because you have fully absorbed the narrative being projected onto you.

(Watch their video here for a deeper analysis)

At this point in the album, Rodrigo realizes this is no longer a leap into love but something far more disorienting, like free-falling in Tartarus. You can flail and grasp for an anchor, but you start to realize you have no idea how much you have left to fall. The love that once felt like an exciting new horizon now feels like vertigo. She starts to panic about the landing of it all. She knows she will hit the bottom. But the question is when, how hard, and what will be left intact when it finally comes?

One of my favorites on the album is track 10, “what’s wrong with me,” which features Robert Smith. It’s that sinking feeling that something you’ve poured so much time, energy, love, and devotion into might not actually be right for you. As much as you try to ignore it, the feeling lingers in your shadow, trailing you in the quiet moments between chaos. You could complain to your friends, but what exactly would you even say? Why try to communicate that something is wrong when you’re not entirely sure yourself? You just know something is off, but it couldn’t be the thing that’s supposed to make you happy, right?

As much as you may try to avoid it, someone has to call it off. “Less” is one of the reasons I say Ms. Rodrigo is “in my walls,” as I experienced a very similar situation with a long-time friend that evolved into a maybelatership. You know that the situation is hurting you, but as much as it is, you want that person more. There is a raw and uncomfortable truth in realizing that sometimes your partner’s goodbye is them caring for you more clearly than you can care for yourself.

At that point, honesty becomes its own kind of mercy. Ending it now may preserve what remains of the love between you, before it hardens into its own form of resentment. If the goodbye is gentle enough, it can soften the outline of whatever harm was done, making it harder to fully see who may be to blame. From my experience, that also makes it more complicated to be friends with them past this point. It may hurt like hell, but I have always and will always respect a partner who can call it when it’s not working. You did not fail as a couple; you just didn’t align in the ways that allow a relationship to endure. But at the end of the day, you walk away knowing that you did what you set out to do: you tried to be honestly and imperfectly loved.

My favorite song on the album almost didn’t make it onto the tracklist. Rodrigo recently said in an interview that the nearly 6-minute “cigarette smoke” was a last-minute add to the album by herself and producer Daniel Nigro. After some time away from the breakup, “cigarette smoke” reminds us that you were already alone in the relationship long before the official breakup conversation.

There’s also something painfully familiar for me in the line “you said that I made loving look easy ’til I made it hard.” Women are often reassured by their partner that they are not “too much,” and in turn, we are vulnerable and open—until that openness starts requiring care in return. Suddenly, the relationship’s tolerance for “too much” becomes very thin. What was once loved about us becomes something that needs to be managed.

The song asks for an impossible fairness in “give me back my time, and I will give you back your heart.” Time can’t be returned, but it still shows our human desire for proof that the relationship mattered just as much to the other person as it did to you.

Olivia describes her memories more truthfully than any other artist I have ever heard. They are malleable, unstable, and negotiable. She wants to know the truth of how negatively he feels about her, so “the memories turn dark.” If she can change the color of the positive memories, she might be able to survive the absence of them.

The repetition of “dark” seven times at the end of this song is intentional, representing the idea of the final seven minutes before death. Olivia would rather her brain rewrite the relationship as something negative she needs to let go of, rather than as something loving, beautiful, or idealized.

The songwriter’s third album leaves us with the unsettling reality that you don’t actually know what comes after the final moments of human connection—only the sense of something that we can’t follow into the beyond.

According to them, women’s standards are “too high,” and feminism has gone “too far.” They like to say that there aren’t enough “good women” left. Despite all evidence to the contrary, the problem is somehow always everyone else.

Many men still approach dating as though politics, personality, and appearance exist in separate categories. They label themselves “nice guys,” expecting women to overlook ideological differences and a lack of physical attraction.

For decades, conservative men could rely on charisma, status, or cultural norms to smooth over ideological differences in dating. Now that those tactics aren’t working, they blame dating culture instead of actually looking at what they bring to the table. Dating apps have made these tensions impossible to hide, as women are more selective about both looks and politics, and men are discovering that they fail both tests at the same time.

The dating landscape

Reentering the dating apps made me quickly remember the reason I got off. Not only does it feel superficial and transactional, but it also turns human connection into something curated, optimized, and weirdly disposable.

The apps are not built for long-lasting connections; they are built for quick hits of sexual dopamine. They were built for men by men like Sean Rad, Jonathan Badeen, Andrey Andreev, and Justin McLeod. More importantly, these agolithums were designed to maximize engagement, not intimacy. The longer users stay swiping and matching, the more successful the platform becomes.

The way men approach connection on these apps is also skewed. A 2025 study proved this, as researchers found that men tended to “reach up,” often swiping right on women who were more attractive than themselves. Men outnumber women on many dating apps, using the “wide net” theory, swiping through as many people as they can to hopefully secure a few matches. Heterosexual men prioritize physical attractiveness in potential partners, making their swiping habits almost entirely based on appearance rather than any other attribute on someone’s profile, especially in the early stages of swiping. Research exploring queer relationships from dating apps is (un-shockingly) low.

If you’d like to see the world through my eyes (and not just my brain ;)) follow me over on Insta.

The algorithms on dating apps are designed to reward the exact opposite of what many women say they want. Compared to men, women are generally more likely to prioritize personality, stability, and intelligence over raw physical looks, especially in long-term relationships. Even if a man is a 4 or 5, he can quickly become a 7 or an 8 if he has the right personality, enough confidence to initiate, and genuine charisma. The study published in PLOS One proves this, as researchers found women, on average, either matched with people around their level or slightly “less desirable.”

The beauty and ideology gap

Your face card is your only type of currency in the eyes of men, which distorts how women have to operate on the apps. Image curation is a central tenet and practice for women who exist online. Women spend between $2,000 and $10,000 annually on beauty products, and getting the photo has become a group project on every single vacation. Women are incentivized to be highly selective about looks because many men on these platforms exhibit relatively similar levels of effort and presentation, regardless of their baseline attractiveness. As a result, physical appearance becomes the most immediate and efficient filtering mechanism for both genders.

Still, there is a difference in how the genders approach one another. Most women ask two critical questions: 1) Are you hot? and 2) Do you align with my political ideology?

A lot of men assume they can put in minimal effort, or just have a general lack of care for anyone outside of themselves, on dating apps, and still be successful, then blame women or “dating culture” when they don’t get matches. But that ignores how much presentation and physical attractiveness actually shape outcomes on these apps.

While there may be many fish in the sea, the fish are either conventionally unattractive, conservative, or, in most cases, both. For a while, political ideology was able to be brushed past in dating. Gen X swooned over the “hot Republican,” with men like Scott Brown—former U.S. Senator for Massachusetts—being named Cosmopolitan’s American’s sexiest man in 1982.

Powerhouse showrunner Shonda Rhimes cemented the idea for Millennials with one of her most famous couples: Olitz.

Hello Mr. President

Olivia Pope is an icon in her own right and has been recounted as such. But the imagery and impact of Fitzgerald Grant III is one we often skip in pop culture.

In 2012, the United States reelected its first Black president, who was a Democrat nonetheless. And on Thursday nights, audiences sat down for TGIT, captivated by an adulterous Republican white man.

Portrayed by Tony Goldwin (yes, Goldwin as in MGM movie studios), Fitz served as the 44th president and was bred for power. The son of a former politician, Fitz was Ivy League educated, with a decorated military service, and years of experience as the Governor of California.

Above all, Fitz was a conventionally attractive, charismatic yearner, even if it was for a woman who wasn’t his wife. He also was not the Republicans we see today. The core of the show literally centered on Fitz wanting to openly date and marry his long-term affair partner, Olivia Pope, who was a Black fixer and attorney to the District’s rich and powerful. He tried to pass the (fictional) DREAM Act for immigrants to go to college, he wasn’t super religious, and was anti-gun, so much so that his wife, Mellie Grant, makes a stop at a pro-gun event in his place.

In season four, The Lawn Chair shows Fitz attempting to pass sweeping police-reform legislation after the murder of Brandon Parker, a Black teenager gunned down by police in the streets of D.C.

Some critics of the show have even gone as far as to call Fitz “a liberal in Republicans’ clothing.” He embodied this fantasy version of power that isn’t fully aligned with modern conservative identity.

Now, am I saying that we should go back to overlooking ideological and political differences just if the person you’re dating is hot? No. Gen Z men (31%) are more likely than Gen Z women (23%) to identify as conservative, while Gen Z women (39%) are slightly more likely than Gen Z men (34%) to identify as liberal. That divide is a fracture point in dating for the generation, as today’s conservatives widely align themselves with all things anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigrant, and anti-DEI, using Christian religious psychosis as an excuse for hate.

However, we still look back fondly at the character and the American Cheating of it all because even beyond politics and personality, attraction ultimately collapses into something simpler and more immediate: appearance.

Appearance of compassion, appearance of consideration of those outside yourself, appearance of equality. When we take a look past the physical, Gen Z women are seeing a pool of men who are openly stating on their profiles that they support the views of a party that means to belittle and demean their sex.

Fitz was able to get America to fall for him because he was beautiful and actually had half a heart. But to be ugly and bigoted? It’s the kiss of death for straight men on dating apps.

But defining “whimsy” is actually quite complicated. On the surface, the trend aims to add a sense of playfulness and vibrancy to our everyday capitalist life. Some say it’s a way to heal your inner child by being brave and embracing your past interests. Others claim “embracing their whimsy” looks like stopping to smell the roses or romanticizing the little moments that we often overlook, adding a touch of sparkle and joy to what we normally see as mundane. Sounds great, right?

According to psychology, it actually is. Researchers at Penn State found that daily positive events (like having dinner with a friend or taking a walk) may be linked to lower inflammation in the body. In the study, positive psychological factors seemed to undo the physiological effects of stress and enhance cognitive flexibility in over 950 middle-aged adults.

But who gets to be the face of the whimsy trend is what makes me question its overall impact.

Again, defining what qualifies as “whimsy” is difficult and subjective, but most imagery around the trend is all things sparkly, pink, nature, and domestic. While anyone can be whimsical, the trend is dominated by fem-presenting women, specifically fem white women. There’s also this unique childlike wonder injected into each post, taking the simplest creative ideas and rebranding them as a new “cool girl” activity. (This speaks to another issue of Gen Z being the “Christopher Columbus” generation—aka acting as if we have discovered something revolutionary that was there all along—but that’s another topic for another day.)

Unfortunately, most of society defines what a woman is based on their relation to men. Women are consistently sexualized, fetishized, and commodified. In some strange way, women fold into men’s lives as a product for them to flaunt as a competition to each other. Men absorb social power based on the woman who stands beside them.

This new image of “the whimsy woman” is a stark contrast to the two typical archetypes of women portrayed in pop culture, music, and TV.

The siren or seductress is an archetype we are all familiar with. This woman embodies mystery and sensuality, typically exuding some kind of intoxicating presence that’s alluring yet mysterious. (There are many racial layers we can add to this analysis, but I am keeping it general today.) These women are overly sexualized, and the media presents them as though women’s only source of power is their sexual value to men. The siren is seen as dangerous across the media. They find a way to reclaim their sexual autonomy from men and wield it as power, and as a consequence, are blamed for the social disorder. I’d argue Elizabeth Taylor, Joyce Bryant (aka The Bronze Blond Bombshell), Samantha Jones, and Kim Kardashian (including the Kardashian curse) all fall into this category. Each is not only sexually empowered, but they are also financially successful, opinionated, and independent.

But who’s on the other side of the coin of our typical archetypes? The good girl whose doe eyes and honest personality seem to be loved by all and exploited by many. She is virginous, always honest, and aims to carve her own path out on her road to please others. These women follow the rules of society and are generally obedient, and are typically portrayed as younger women. Some may call her the “girl next door,” but I like to call this archetype The Symbol. Most media is centered around The Symbol being “deflowered” and “ruined” so to speak, as it is seen as a major coming-of-age transition for a girl to become a woman. Cruel Intentions, 10 Things I Hate About You, Easy A, Lady Bird, Love and Basketball, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and on and on and on and on. While she may seem similar to our emerging image of whimsy, she is distinct in that she is naive to her immaturity instead of leaning into it.

Both archetypes are extremely limited and sexist views of who women are, or could be. Women are intelligent, creative, determined, confident, and above all, resilient. Well, at least from my perspective. But the women I see, along with The Symbol, the siren, and everyone in between, are constantly disrespected and disregarded as too masculine or sexual for society. You can do everything right and nothing at all and still be the “wrong kind of woman.”

So, given the losing game of society’s idea of a woman, we come to the central question of the whimsy renaissance: Who wouldn’t want to be a girl again?

Some look to whimsymaxxing as the solution to the insane social structure we find ourselves in. They slide back into their childhood hobbies and nurture their inner child. If you’re never going to be the “right” type of woman, you may as well try to avoid it all and be a happy one.

A little sprinkle of edible glitter on each meal, embracing mismatched patterns, and layering jeans with dresses are just how some embrace their whimsy. While freeing you from the “rules of society,” the whimsy woman aesthetic taps into this kawaii element. Cutesy, childlike, and docile.

But isn’t that exactly where society wants us? Are we truly choosing a new path of empowerment and reclamation, or are we just training each other to play into a new role in the script that society has always set?

The infantilization of women has existed since the dawn of society and sustains gendered subordination. Embracing the aesthetic within whimsymaxxing aligns our idea of the modern woman with that of a child, equating femininity with weakness and innocence. She is childlike, but she is choosing to be that way. Is that empowering? Maybe to some. But this visual queue undermines women’s authority and autonomy, prioritizing pastel colors, hand-crafted details, and aesthetics that perpetuate sexist stereotypes.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a pastel myself. Half my closet is pink, and I would probably be described by other people as a “girly girl” even if I don’t see myself that way. But no matter if it is the choice of whimsical women or I to lean into the traditional ideas of femininity, the issue is that we will be rewarded for looking and acting like prepubescent girls. It’s one of the reasons The Symbol is seen across coming-of-age films.

Patriarchy sees the babyification of women as the peak form of femininity, and men see “coaxing women into adulthood” through sex as their god-given right and responsibility. I believe this is one of the minor reasons the Trad wife movement has grown into the monster it is today, as it promotes submission to one’s husbands, homemaking, and child-rearing as a woman’s only value. The Symbol’s ideal is a shell of a woman, a hollowed-out girl looking to men around her for them to socialize her into adulthood.

No matter if a woman falls into the archetype of Siren or Symbol, they are sexualized across media, and it is presented as though their only source of power is in their sexual value to men.

So, if we are to create a new archetype–fueling the social construction of women–can we please adopt one that doesn’t infantilize women in its portrayal? We can craft and enjoy the pastels without acting as if we forgo all adult thoughts, opinions, and activities.

We should reclaim and broaden society’s narrow idea of what a woman is and can be. But to do so, we must also break the self-regulation that tells us to be relatable to each other as women, we must return to girls.