The Eck’s Factor: How Giggle and Zoom reinforce discriminatory gender norms
“Why did you paint your nails? Did your girlfriend paint them for you?”
I pause, interrupted from kneading a strawberry into soap and isopropyl alcohol. I turn around while wiping my sticky fingers on my chinos. “No, I do not have a girlfriend. Anybody can paint their nails, Jésus!” I grin as I shift uncomfortably. He narrows his eyes, suspect. I resume mushing the strawberry, working to help the students, whom I teach science weekly, extract the fruit’s octoploid DNA.
“I thought painting nails was only for girls?”
I pause again, breathing out as I mentally prepare my next response. “Actually, Sebastian, painting nails is just a behavior that we typically assign to females within a binary that equates sex with gender, but gender identity really is just a performance!”
Fine, I did not actually say that to a third grader. However, while working with these elementary school students every week, I constantly thought of their naivete and how their surroundings mold their predispositions regarding gender. They are just kids, after all, but our culture simply picks them up in its currents and takes them along for the ride.
These children are the byproducts of the same culture that perpetuates gender as a strict divide between male and female — blue versus pink, shorts versus skirts. Certain toys are for boys, and certain toys are for girls. Certain apps are for men, and certain apps are for women.
Yes, you read that correctly. Giggle, a social app developed exclusively for girls, was intended as a platform for women to safely network and share interests. How does it ensure that only women sign up, you might ask? Just take one selfie, and that’s it! The app uses biometric screening software to analyze bone structure and determine if the face is of a “woman” before it grants users their golden ticket. However, one’s bone structure does not fairly determine gender identity — the software does not work for transgender women.
Giggle’s software introduces a variety of problems such as collecting and storing personal images and information, as well as reserving the rights to share it with third-party websites. But beyond these issues, its software intended to ensure its exclusivity to women reinforces transphobia. It’s the same transphobia embedded in problematic counterarguments to trans bathroom access laws: If gender identity is really “fluid,” pedophiles and sex offenders can just use the trans identity to violate women’s safety. To effectively navigate these stereotypes and combat problematic gender identification norms, Giggle and other discriminatory media must adopt a new approach.
Giggle ostensibly revolves around womanhood. But to be a successful app for only people who identify as women, Giggle must include all feminine-identifying individuals. As an app whose existence succumbs to the socially constructed gender binary and completely negates gender expression, Giggle is inherently transphobic. Bone structure is a biological characteristic that does not correlate to gender. Giggle is not an app for women — it is an app for people who fit into the biometrically determined construction of women.
Giggle is not the only circulating platform that misleadingly exploits “gender” as integral to its functioning. Zoom University, an intercollegiate virtual dating platform, matches applicants on double dates with their best friend. Sounds fun, right? Actually, your best friend has to identify as the same gender. And then, the double date is with two people of the opposite gender.
Like Giggle, Zoom University relies on the socially constructed gender binary to function. The application states, “What gender is your group?” and the only two response options are “guys” and “girls.” Heteronormative and exclusive, Zoom University does not allow genderqueer individuals, as well as LGBTQ-identifying people, to sign up. The website is merely a hot spot for cisgender, heterosexual people.
To deter from perpetuating outdated, societal gender norms that continually invalidate people’s identities, both of these sites must be fixed to yield inclusive and connecting platforms. After all, according to a survey by the World Wide Web Foundation, “more than half of young women have experienced violence online, including sexual harassment, threatening messages and having private images shared without consent.”
Giggle could help avert gender-based internet violence — but in the same way critics argue against trans bathroom rights, Giggle harnesses women’s safety as a means to stand behind their discriminatory practices. The app is not just transphobic, but it pushes a trans-exclusionary radical feminist agenda — it appears to be fundamentally “feminist,” but it is merely exclusive to cisgender women.
In addition to revising its privacy policy, Giggle must stay true to its advertising as an all-girls app. Because the bone structure biometric screening does not work for all women, perhaps the app can utilize an honor system instead. Information and photos will remain private, and all women can join regardless of biological characteristics. Zoom University can allow mixed-gender couples to sign up and participants can indicate their gender identity preferences. These adjustments would not only make these platforms more inclusive, but they would also aid in dismantling these toxic gender norms that our culture cannot seem to bypass.
Meanwhile, I will continue dismantling toxic gender norms at elementary schools. I can just imagine my students returning home, saying, “Gender is a performance, mommy.” It is like music to my ears.
Matthew Eck is a sophomore writing about culturally relevant social issues. His column, “The Eck’s Factor,” runs every other Thursday.