"Since Donald Trump returned to office, I have noticed a phenomenon at my high school that I call the new chill girl. A group of kids is talking casually about something. Seemingly out of the blue, one of the boys makes an off-handed joke. Maybe it's racist or sexist or homophobic, but whatever the poison, they inject it and the group dynamic shifts ever so slightly. As a general rule,"
"No one wants to hang out with the stickler, so no one wants to become her. And therefore, juvenile illiberalism lives on This kind of fearful silence is becoming more common outside of high schools, too. In December of 2024, Disney removed a transgender character from a new series. This April, the New York Times reported that a new Trump administration regulation bars government employees from adding pronouns to their email bios."
A social pattern has emerged in which boys introduce racist, sexist, or homophobic jokes into casual groups, prompting politically progressive girls to either speak up and be stigmatized or remain silent and be deemed "chill." Since November 2024, more girls choose silence to avoid social exclusion, allowing juvenile illiberalism to persist. Similar dynamics appear in broader culture: a transgender character was removed from a Disney series, a federal rule barred pronouns in email bios, and a major newspaper chain stopped publishing diversity statistics. A nostalgic trad-wife trend and influencer prominence amplify homemaker ideals and conservative gender norms.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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