OK, I’ll admit it. When I first learned of hot girl walks, I tried it: Go on a walk, think about how hot you are, do not talk (or think) about men.

I thought girl dinner was pretty funny, too. Adult woman dinner meant preparing dinner for others. But a girl dinner? It was just delicious — or at least, edible — morsels tossed on a plate to please you and you alone. No prep, no cleanup, just me and my wedge of cheese and a handful of stale almonds, toppling the patriarchy with snacks.

But then, it seemed, there was suddenly a special “girl” version for everything: Weird girls were quirky fashionistas who refused to conform to sartorial blandness. Clean girls were subverting beauty standards — or something like that — with “no makeup” makeup and skin that looked like glazed donuts. Snail girls prioritized “self-care” over ambition, while rat girls — perhaps the most clever of the girlie trends — scurried about town, not a care in the world, shirking society’s expectations that women cater to others by prioritizing only themselves.

I’ve followed these phenomena over the past year with some combination of bewilderment and delight. Decades after my mother’s generation tried to dissuade the use of “girl” to refer to grown women, that four-letter word, with all its connotations, still seemed to make things involving women more playful, less shrill, a little more fun. And who didn’t want to be fun? Surely there was nothing harmful about the idea, however silly, that a simple dinner could be a feminist act, or that light physical exercise could be an exercise in self-confidence. Honestly, if only I could be as confident and unbothered — and simultaneously menacing — as a New York City rat.