4 Reasons More And More Women Are Entering Their 'Soft Girl Era' & Are Finally Protecting Their Peace
Being soft means standing up for yourself and what nourishes you most.
Monica Emerson / Pexels If you scroll through social media on any given day, you’re likely to find testimonials on the best ways to live your life.
All trends should be taken with a grain of salt, yet there’s one trend women are claiming as a route to fulfillment: the soft girl era, which exists in opposition to the harsher parts of reality.
Here are 4 reasons more women are entering their ‘soft girl era’ to finally protect their peace:
1. To center themselves and their needs.
One woman named Toria Lynaee gave a nuanced definition of the soft girl era, explaining, “I’m seeing a lot of people link the soft girl era with somebody who is submissive, who isn’t outspoken… which just isn’t the case.”
“If that’s what you want to do in your soft girl era, be my guest, but don’t expect every woman to want to do that,” she continued. “Being in my soft girl era basically means doing whatever I want and protecting my energy while doing so."
“All in all, I think being in your soft girl era is about slowing down and taking the time to really appreciate what you want in life and making sure that you are living the life that’s going to propel you into being the person that you want to be,” Toria Lynaee concluded.
By focusing more on what your own needs are, apart from the high-stress demands society places on people, you can enter your soft girl era with ease and abundance.
2. To accept support from other people.
Another woman named Ashlee Patterson explained her take on being in her soft girl era, noting, “I know I’m in my soft girl era because I’ve taken my cape off.”
“My soft girl era means, for me, that I no longer feel I’ve got to do it all alone, be everything to everybody,” she explained.
Photo: Roberto Hund / Pexels
She’s striving to rely on others and ask for support from the people around her, allowing her to lead a softer, simpler existence.
3. To release stress.
Carmen Rojas utilizes her soft girl era as a way to combat hustle culture and ease stress. She offered a perspective as to why entering a soft girl era might not feel easy, at first.
“We have been conditioned to attach our worth to our productivity, to our to-do list, to how much we can accomplish in a day,” Rojas said.
Yet grinding to get ahead can wreak havoc on our mental and physical well-being, and rest is maybe the most important thing we can give ourselves to replenish our lives.
“We do, in fact, deserve rest,” she proclaimed. “It’s not going to feel easy at first. It’s probably going to feel very difficult in the beginning for you to accept this new reality and accept this new identity, because of this programming.”
She believes that “listening to what your body and to what your body needs is actually you, reclaiming your power. When you honor your body, you’re acting out of the space of self-worth and love for yourself and your body and your soul.”
Photo: Sora Shimazaki / Pexels
Another woman named Shay offered her lived experience in her own soft girl era, giving her personal take on why she’s so happy.
She described her life before entering her soft girl era, “stressing over all of my problems and stressing over everyone else’s problems.”
“The first thing you need to do is care less. Start caring less. The second thing you can do is stop giving advice. Say you don’t know; say you don’t have the answer.”
4. To find balance against burnout.
Shania Bhopa, a PhD candidate from Canada, gave an alternate take on how the soft girl era can be harmful to women who claim it, even in an attempt to combat the all-consuming nature of burnout.
She described the soft girl era trend as toxic, defining it as a movement “promoting more feminine energy, which the trend exemplifies as not working hard at a job, more household tasks, and leaning into feminine energy in your relationship with a man, because otherwise, you’re going to be burnt out.”
She explained why she disagreed with this particular positionality, proclaiming, “Burn-out is not specific to either masculine or feminine energy. Burnout isn’t gendered. This idea that being burnt out is more of a masculine energy is writing the narrative that women shouldn’t work hard because working hard means being burnt out.”
Photo: Monica Turlui / Pexels
She believes that working hard doesn’t automatically translate into working 24/7, which would definitely lead to being burnt out. “We can do it all in a way that’s healthy for us,” she maintained.
Defining social trends through strict binaries, like focusing on the divide between masculine energy and feminine energy, can be harmful. There’s inherent worth in any movement that allows us to realign our daily actions with our deepest core values, especially if that movement is one that lets us slow down and lean into our nourishment.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture analysis, and all things to do with the entertainment industry.