TLDR:

Our timelines have been flooded with variations of girl dinner, aka a no-cooking-required meal made up of a hodgepodge of foods, made for just one person. Think: snack plate; glorified lunchables; what’s left on the day you clean out your fridge; foods to eat when you don’t want to cook. It’s a way that many women in our lives already eat, but the TikTok trend of people sharing their girl dinners just put a name to it.

Here’s The Thing:

Surprise, surprise, as the internet got ahold of the girl dinner trend, the whole thing got taken out of context. We saw videos of filled plates alongside videos of a plate with a juul and string cheese, which had some worried about how the trend could normalize disordered eating. Let’s talk for a sec about the heart of girl dinner and why it is so important:

By the 1960s, this idea of the perfect single woman was thriving: she was pretty, she had a job, she was searching for a husband and of course, she could cook. In the 1980s and 90s, that mindset stuck around but also included another requirement: women had to be stick thin. Longtime beauty standards of unhealthy thinness passed on to us through generations PLUS ongoing unrealistic beauty standards we take in day after day imply the way we look is more important than making ourselves feel good.

But that’s why girl dinner is so important! You deserve to feel good, fueled and full from the food you eat and it normalizes that! Prioritizing your own personal needs pushes back against the insane and impossible norms of what we’ve been told women should be. It’s about going beyond the idea that cooking and producing something is the only thing that gives a woman meaning.

The Takeaway:

Life is hard. Times are expensive. Temps are HOT. So sometimes you have to understand why the girls want to come home, not cook and eat a bunch of cheese.

But seriously, girl din is about more than just simplicity and ease, it’s about glorifying the things we do that make us feel good and about honoring and celebrating the power we have (even when it can feel scarce) to do so.

Girl dinner was never meant to be yet a whole ‘nother way women can be critiqued, but to celebrate and share the little things that fuel us, the ways we adapt when things get hard, the small moments that give us pause and pleasure.

So lean into the ease of it, friends. And if you need some inspo on what to eat, keep reading. The Honey girlies shared their go-to for the perfect girl dinner down below.

Required Reading:

• Stitch with @Cass @Marissa Mullen changing beauty norms #arthistorytik… | Boy Dinner | TikTok
• What Is Girl Dinner? – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

The Honey Notes