The Bimboification of Women’s Personal Finance (I hate “Girl Math”)
Time to end the ‘cute but clueless’ money narrative.
I just returned $100 worth of Amazon purchases, which means I made $100 today!
And since I bought a $200 coat on sale for $120, I actually saved $80, which means I can spend that on something else.
Oh, and that concert ticket I bought months ago? By the time the event rolls around, it’s basically free because past-me already paid for it.
Right? RIGHT?
Welcome to Girl Math.
‘Girl math’ started as a fun little way to justify indulgences. Cash doesn’t count. Splitting a purchase means it’s practically free. If you return something, you made money.
It’s funny, and honestly, it’s relatable. Regardless of gender, I’m willing to bet we’ve all run “Girl Math” logic through our heads from time to time.
Small “money wins” – even with roundabout logic – feel so good. It’s why things like BOGO (buy one get one free) sales are so enticing, and why “I had to get it – it was on sale!” feels like such a cultural lexicon.
BUT (you knew there was a ‘but’ coming), the Girl Math mindset falls a little too neatly into old tropes about women being bad at money, being “dumber” than men (hello, bimbo jokes), and being oh so helpless to their emotional impulses.
“The problem with Girl Math isn’t that women spend money. It’s that it frames money as something women don’t need to understand—or worse, aren’t smart enough to.”
It’s a narrative that could’ve been solely light-hearted within a cultural vacuum, but unfortunately finds itself woven into a larger, darker context worth dissecting.
And to start, we need to talk about ‘bimbos’.
The New Rise of Bimbos
A ‘bimbo’ is defined as “an attractive but unintelligent or frivolous young woman.”. In recent years, we’ve seen “himbo” – the male version – come into our vernacular, but bimbo still holds a cultural grip on how we see women.
The bimbo trope parallels how we’ve perceived females as intellectually inferior throughout history. Charles Darwin, the “father of evolution”, was a big proponent of women’s intellectual inferiority, saying “Man is more courageous, pugnacious and energetic than woman, and has a more inventive genius. His brain is absolutely larger.”
(By the way, if the whole brain shape and size discourse sounds familiar, that’s because it strongly echoes the pseudoscientific field of phrenology that was once used to justify racist ideas like the supposed inferiority of certain groups – in other words, a disgusting mindset.)
And while it seemed like we were moving away from the bimbo trope in the 21st century, lately it’s made a bit of a comeback. But this time, it’s been rebranded.
“Cute but clueless” is the best way to summarize the newest wave of accepted online bimboism where women lean into a character of willful obliviousness. And when met with challenges or mistakes, the phrase “I’m just a girl” is cheerfully declared.
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And so comes “Girl Math”—the lovechild of the “cute but clueless” aesthetic and the “I’m just a girl” mindset. It’s the latest iteration of the old-school bimbo trope, but this time applied to how women talk about and justify their spending.
And as the title of this post not-so-subtly hints at: I hate Girl Math.
“It’s not that serious!” – but what if it is?
“UGH, stop taking this so seriously, Pop Finance Report. It’s not that deep! You’re taking something fun and ruining it.”
I’m sure someone reading this post is thinking that, even if only for a moment. And honestly, valid. Internet discourse can love pulling apart the smallest of details, putting them under a microscope, and twisting them for virtual engagement.
That being said, it can also be true that jokes are a reflection of where cultural norms and biases currently reside.
In the case of the Girl Math joke, it reflects how women are still infantilized—and sometimes even reinforce the perception that they’re less capable than men, especially in traditionally male-dominated spaces like finance.
Yes, it’s funny to make illogical justifications for reckless spending. One hundred percent these self-deprecating jokes are relatable (to both men and women).
But, self-deprecation is a tricky line to toe.
For one, it can uphold stereotypes to the external world – for Girl Math, this might mean young girls seeing that less is expected of them, and that their female status makes them destined for bad financial habits.
Or on the flip side, it could mean young boys seeing these Girl Math jokes and internalizing that women are bad with money, which may impact how they control future partners’ finances.
But maybe more importantly, self-deprecating jokes like Girl Math can reinforce negative beliefs in your internal world, too.
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You are what you think. If deep down, beneath the Girl Math jokes, you believe you can’t manage money or save, you’re setting yourself up for a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The problem with ‘Girl Math’ isn’t that women spend money. It’s that it frames money as something women don’t need to understand, or worse, that women aren’t smart enough to understand. And that’s dangerous.
Not to mention, untrue – in reality, women actually tend to be more frugal than men. And when women choose to invest, they typically outperform male investors.
Yet at the same time:
Women retire with less money than men.
Women are more likely to outlive their wealth.
Women are more likely to report experiencing financial abuse than men (1 out of 5 women experience financial abuse compared to 1 out of 7 men).
To me, this shows how critical the financial knowledge gap is for women, and thus why it’s so important we take this all seriously.
Are we a buzzkill in the process? Maybe. But doesn’t this deserve a little seriousness? Could it—dare I say—really be that deep?
Because once you see how dire things are for so many people’s financial health, Girl Math stops feeling so cute. It starts to feel harmful and expensive.
How much is “Girl Math” costing us?
Run the numbers, and you realize Girl Math isn’t just costing us money—it’s costing us, period. At the extreme end, it may even be the thing standing between us and true financial freedom.
This applies to anyone of any gender who makes small financial justifications constantly.
It’s not that you need to become a micromanager of your own wallet, obsessing and stressing over every cent, but we should land somewhere in the middle. (Personally, I’m a fan of the word “intentional” for how to think about my finances)
Here’s an example of the financial cost Girl Math can have:
If you casually overspend or round down by just $15 a day, that’s $450 a month, or $5,400 a year.
If you had invested that $5,400 annually starting at age 25, earning 10% return (this is the average historical return of the stock market for the last century), by age 55 you’d have over $888,000! If we adjust this for inflation, at a 7% return, that amount would be $510,000 (aka when you are 55, it would feel the same as having $510,000 today).
But if you allow the Girl Math cop out to keep you from taking control of your money — or even worse, you “bimbo” yourself enough to where you defer all money moves to someone like a husband — you could end up vulnerable and with a fraction of that money.
That’s the hidden price of Girl Math.
So here’s the tough love: If you’re not good with money yet, it’s time to drop the “I’m just a girl!” routine. Yes, you are a girl—and you are more than capable of taking control of your money and your future.
