BOSTON—Sarah Little, a mathematics doctoral student at Boston University, argues that contemporary feminism has stalled since the #MeToo movement of 2017, pointing to online trends like "girl math" as evidence of regression.
Little defines "girl math" as an internet phenomenon in which women rationalize discretionary purchases—a coffee, a nail appointment—by claiming they are "free" if paid with cash or if the bank balance remains unchanged. She contends the trend reinforces stereotypes of women as frivolous spenders and, more troublingly, shows women using humor to dismiss themselves rather than challenge the underlying perception.
The contrast is sharp in Little's own field. Women in the Boston University mathematics department are conducting substantive research in differential equations, stochastic processes, and number theory. Yet women remain severely underrepresented: only 11 percent of students admitted to the mathematics graduate program in 2024 were women.
Little's concerns deepened as she read Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex," published in 1949. She found Beauvoir's arguments about economic freedom as a prerequisite for women's liberation still acutely relevant. Today, women in wealthy nations largely possess the economic means to support themselves independently—a shift from Beauvoir's era. Yet Little sees signs of a voluntary retreat: the rise of "trad wife" lifestyles, the prevalence of "girl math," and what she perceives as a decline in feminist momentum.
The #MeToo movement in 2017 appeared to propel fourth-wave feminism forward, Little said. But in the years since, that progress has diminished significantly.
Philosophers and political leaders including Hillary Clinton have long argued that women's full participation in social and political life is essential to democratic health. Virginia Woolf's 1929 essay "A Room of One's Own" underscored how patriarchal pressures constrain women's personal growth and autonomy.
Little's central question cuts to the heart of the debate: not whether women everywhere aspire to identical lives or freedoms, but rather who defines the limits of those aspirations. That question of self-determination remains unresolved.
