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 Christian.
History
[edit | edit source]Sisters Bethany Beal and Kristen Clark started Girl Defined with a focus on high school and college-aged girls, after their first project, bairdsisters.com, failed to gain traction.[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]
Girl Defined became the subject of an Internet meme in 2018 after comedy YouTubers Cody Ko and Noel Miller featured Girl Defined's content on their series That's Cringe. This began a trend on social media in which influencers and regular users made videos parodying and mocking Girl Defined.[2]
The sisters started posting on the platform TikTok in the 2020s.[3] In 2021, Beal went viral for sharing her story of having her first kiss at the age of 30 during her wedding.[4]
Views
[edit | edit source]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 Hope College scholars Sage Mikkelsen and Sarah Kornfield.[6]
Feminism
[edit | edit source]Girl Defined has referred to feminism as an "attack on God's design for womanhood."[5] They have stated their intent to build an online community to support women and girls while "taking a stand against feminism."[7]
Gender and sexuality
[edit | edit source]The sisters discourage kissing and other sexual or sexually suggestive acts before marriage.[5] They advise girls who are attracted to other girls to "seek God" instead. They also argue that transgender people should renounce "choices" that they have made about their gender.[8]
See also
[edit | edit source]References
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