Girl Defined

Girl Defined is a Christian lifestyle blog and YouTube channel run by sisters Bethany Beal and Kristen Clark which focuses on purity culture and navigating mainstream America as an evangelical.

History

The success of Girl Defined was built off the failure of the sister's first project, bairdsisters.com. After bairdsisters.com failed to gain traction the pair rebranded to focus on high school and college aged girls.[1]

In 2016, the sisters began posting videos on YouTube and published their first book, Girl Defined: God’s Radical Design for Beauty, Femininity, and Identity.[1]

In 2018, Girl Defined became a meme after YouTubers Cody Ko and Noel Miller featured Girl Defined's content on their series That's Cringe. This began a trend in which influencers and regular people made videos parodying and mocking Girl Defined.[2]

In the 2020s, the sisters started posting on the platform TikTok.[3]

In 2021, Bethany went viral for sharing her story of having her first kiss at 30 during her wedding.[4]

Views

Girl Defined promotes biblical womanhood. Many of their ideas are borrowed from purity culture which was popular in the 1990s and early 2000s.[5] The organization has been labeled as Christian nationalist by scholars Sage Mikkelsen and Sarah Kornfield.[6]

Sexuality

Kissing before marriage is discouraged as are all other sexual or sexually suggestive acts.[5] They advise girls who are attracted to other girls to "seek God" instead.[7]

Feminism

Girl Defined has referred to feminism as an “attack on God’s design for womanhood.”[5] They believe that part of the purpose of the community is to support people “taking a stand against feminism.”[8]

See also

References
  1. Brobst, Scout (19 October 2020). "How Young Evangelical Women Are Navigating a Sex-Positive Internet". vice.com. Vice. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
  2. McNeal, Stephanie (5 November 2019). "How These Small-Time Christian Influencers Became A Viral TikTok Meme About Purity Culture". buzzfeednews.com. Buzzfeed. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
  3. Vilanova, Constance (20 January 2023). "Aux États-Unis, le culte de la virginité s'installe sur TikTok". telerama.fr. Telerama. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
  4. Weekman, Kelsey (6 July 2022). "WHAT HAPPENS TO CHRISTIAN INFLUENCERS WHEN THEY GET MARRIED?". buzzfeednews.com. Buzzfeed. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
  5. Thwaites, Elle (28 June 2022). "The impact of Christian purity culture is still being felt – including in Britain". theconversation.com. The Conversation. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
  6. Mikkelsen, Sage; Kornfield, Sarah (2021). "Girls Gone Fundamentalist: Feminist Appeals of White Christian Nationalism". Women's Studies in Communication. 44 (4): 563-585. doi:10.1080/07491409.2021.1911895. S2CID 242451674. Retrieved July 27, 2023.
  7. Phillips, Jessica (20 January 2021). "YouTube's Fundamentalist Influencers Are Preaching Abstinence and Anti-Abortion". www.vice.com. Vice. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
  8. Hugh, Jess (5 October 2022). "'You can't cancel me': embattled TikTok star reinvents herself as a warrior for Jesus". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
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