Aestheticising corporate life underpins the no-nonsense feminism of many modern businesswomen
At precisely 6 am, a glossy Nespresso machine rattles out a shot into a Perspex mug. In the next scene, a dressing-gown beauty snuggles into an armchair, MacBook on lap, to plan the upcoming day. At 7am she dabs her face with an oil-and-gel concoction. Resplendent with a pearly dew glow, she leaves her flat at 7:45 am for the office. Powder pinks, fluffy cushions, and white marble transition into a mint-green matcha iced latte to signal the end of the morning commute.
I am describing the 6 to 9 before the 9 to 6 — a day in a life of a “corporate girlie” according to the current Instagram and TikTok trend. Thousands of women, mostly in their 20s, document their routines by posting short videos online that romanticise the daily grind.
This new feminine flavour aestheticises self-help and productivity
Several articles have appeared that criticise this trend. One piece in Stylist magazine asks, “TikTok’s Corporate Girl aesthetic: harmless motivation or yet another unrealistic standard for women?”. The butterfly-like transition inspires both insecurity and aspiration in my sleep-ridden eyes, as I contemplate my disorganised desk setup. But then I remember that my freelance schedule does not require battling rush-hour commuters, and nor does it involve an open-plan office panopticon where prying eyes police orderliness .
This new feminine flavour aestheticises self-help and productivity. Many current authors and creators develop classical wisdom to produce this kind of content. Philosopher Will Durant summarises the advice of Aristotle, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit”. The major success of books such as Atomic Habits (2018) by James Clear — a bestseller that promises to offer “small changes [that] will have a revolutionary effect on your career, your relationships, and your life” — testifies to the appetite for such content by Gen Z and Gen Alpha. The core tenets of the messages remain consistent, but Clear is highly successful in packaging them for today.
Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life (2018) also fits into this category because it clearly and directly prescribes a series of principles for self-improvement. One of the chapters famously advises the reader to make their own bed. Parallels can be drawn to corporate girlie reels which typically begin with a hotel-standard preening of pillows. Peterson reported in 2018 that 91 per cent of his viewers on YouTube were male. Rather than issuing an instruction, corporate girlies lead by aestheticising action.
The corporate environment was historically a masculine space. In George Bernard Shaw’s play Mrs. Warren’s Profession (1893), the Cambridge graduate Vivie defies gendered expectations at the turn of the twentieth century by dogmatically pursuing a career as an actuary, whilst expressing her hatred of holidays. To this, Mr Praed replies, “You make my blood run cold. Are you to have no romance, no beauty in your life?”. The lasting impression is of Vivie hunched over, alone, at an office desk, having pushed away her friends and family due to her own attitude of moral supremacy. This image is excellently orchestrated by director Dominic Cooke in its current run at the Garrick Theatre in London.
Women now have the stylistic language to express their own femininity as part of this professional landscape
Yet the composition of corporate life has shifted to such an extent that women now have the stylistic language to express their own femininity as part of this professional landscape. The glamorisation of the corporate routine — kitten heels, bouncy blow dries, and designer handbags — defies expectations of office life. The culmination of these details is to reify the original meaning of glamour — traced back to the 1715 Scottish word “glamer”, which means magic or enchantment — to suggest that corporate girlies lure us with false pretences. Romanticising the grind is one way to make the cogs turn in a smoother rhythm.
Never did long hours, spreadsheets, and HR meetings look so sexy. Description of this genre as “career porn” — another associated hashtag — feeds into the marketability of this image. Famously, to testify for the Lord Longford Report on pornography in 1972, Kenneth Clark decried that “To my mind art exists in the realm of contemplation, and is bound by some sort of imaginative transposition. The moment art becomes an incentive to action it loses its true character.” He then likens this to pornography. In contrast, the “pornographic” term used in the corporate girlie genre refers not to sexual pleasure, but to the satisfying aesthetics and motivational incentive.
The allure of perfection has been criticised as “toxic” in several articles about the genre due to the high standards it sets for women. Striving for the supposed ideal, for those who criticise neoliberal feminism, is a palliative of capitalist society. Some viewers hear a judgmental voice quizzing them why they don’t begin the day with a ceremonial grade matcha latte, where others see a burst of emerald pleasure into a grey morning. Disposable income — a fantasy not easily available for academics and university students — is necessary to incorporate these luxurious touches into a sustainable lifestyle.
Then there is the snubbing of acts of beautification by radical feminists as the pandering to men. But are they for men at all — or, rather, the aestheticization of professional identity as the self-concerted effort of corporate girlies to grow gracefully into adulthood. Fantastical content romanticises and thereby softens the mundanities of real life by imbuing it with creative spirit. Meanwhile, bright-eyed bright-haired university students shudder at the prospect of a capitalist workplace, while their version of feminism floats as redundantly as ideological smoke.
