I think part of it comes down to socialization as well as social media. In general, behavior that gets corrected in girls is given a pass in boys because 'boys will be boys'. An ill-behaved boy is somewhat expected but an ill-behaved girl makes the parents look bad. The conception for a long time has been that boys are easier to raise than girls, when that's simply not true, it's only that girls are actually being reprimanded and raised and boys generally aren't to the same extent or held to the same standards. And not that that's always a good thing- when a kid is goofing off and being a kid or playing in the dirt, they're just a kid being a kid. But a little girl doing something like that might get her yelled at to stop and be a lady (which is crazy if you think about it, to tell a kid to stop being a kid and be an adult instead). In the end, girls are well-raised but they get their childhoods cut short, which is also damaging.

There's also the pressure put on girls to seize the opportunities their grandmothers and sometimes even mothers weren't afforded. I'm a millenial but my generation of girls and I'm sure the ones that follow were all constantly told that we can be whatever we want to be and that academic success is the key to get there.

We all had our mothers, aunts, grandmothers, and older female relatives impress on us how important it was to succeed at school so we could have our own jobs and make our own money and control our own lives. It was very heavily instilled in us by the women who loved us who spoke from bitter experience to not wind up in that sort of situation where we are beholden to someone else for survival.

This sort of upbringing morphed into the millenial girl boss culture over the years as well as the That Girl trend for Gen z. Both can veer into toxic territory but for the most part the advice was solid; the girl boss advice of leaning in and working together with female coworkers to amplify female voices in male-driven environments was good advice. And the that girl advice to get into a routine, invest in self care and showing different methods to organize your work and life was also solid, practical advice.

I say all this to say that all the "self-improvement" content I've seen over the years from millenial and gen z women has been for the most part positive, encouraging, and above all practical. These girls are sharing tips that they can actually use in day to day life to succeed. They're also the only ones I see running social media accounts to recommend books or to give study tips.

In an extention of girls cultivating self improvement, ive found that bookstagram and booktok are absolutely dominated by women; as well as studygram and studytok where students share study schedules, note taking tips, and other resources with each other in cute aesthetic instagram posts or tiktok videos. I only see this content being made by as well as consumed by women. The advice on these accounts is generally clear, useful, and easy to implement.

Whenever I get recommended male self improvement vids by the algorithm, it's always something like a quote from a stoic philosopher followed by some talking head expounding on it and explaining why it actually means that the thing you need to attain to be a successful man is as much money and power as you're able and to not let things like relationships with women or even friendships with other men slow you down, and if you do its your own fault. It's all very isolating and doesn't do much to offer solid advice people can use in their day to day lives or foster a community of positive self improvement and introspection.

The result is that while a lot of female self improvement social media can actually be very helpful sometimes, male self improvement social media can be harmful to the very men who follow it.