This is a guest piece for EWOMAN WEEK by Veronica (@our_daily_pain)
In the essay “On Women,” Arthur Schopenhauer explains that in women “reasoning faculty is weak, things clearly visible and real, and belonging to the present, exercise a power over them which is rarely counteracted by abstract thoughts, fixed maxims, or firm resolutions, in general, by regard for the past and future or by consideration for what is absent and remote.” This lack of historical knowledge or principle is likely why women often operate via decentralized mimesis, guided by the internet, tiktok and trends the same way they’re subject to the pull of the moon or hormonal rushes.
The internet is the perfect place for feminine repetition, anything online becomes (by necessity) stripped of all association, rendered into a state of endless malleability, re-discovered and re-dissected forever. Tiktok trends are like this, the stupidly named “clean girl,” for example, is a recapitulation of Glossier’s 2015 redux of 20…
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