As women, we know there are just certain behaviours and attitudes we’ll be subject to – whether we like it or not. And often we don’t like it, actually.
So thank goodness there’s a meme to honour all the chaos, frustration, and fun of existing as a woman.
The ‘feminine urge’ meme, which has been doing the rounds since October, is revealing our innermost desires – and you can do it too. Simply prefix any post with ‘the feminine urge’ and explain what you’d like to do, if you really could.
While it’s grown in visibility recently, the original urge, according to website Know Your Meme, dates back to 2009. In April 2021, when a Tumblr user posted “the feminine urge to stab <3”, it travelled to Twitter, as many Tumblr posts do, with another user jumping on the meme with “the feminine urge to bite”. By September, it was “the feminine urge to hunt and gather (steal)”.
But it was in October, when the meme sparked a chain of similar sentiments, that it really took off. The tweet “the feminine urge to play dumb (strategically)” has received more than 150,100 likes since it was posted on October 6.
Since its early more satirical use, the meme is definitely threatening to become a little too earnest for our liking, encapsulating female culture and habits, such as making BFFs in the club toilets, or telling strangers they’re pretty. Some are even using the meme to capture serious experiences, including sexual assault.
And of course, the meme doesn’t even have to speak to a feminine experience, and can honour the mayhem of just being alive. Many are adding their own, ungendered versions of it, sharing their ‘non-binary’ urges with the world.
Meanwhile, others are contributing their ‘masculine urge’ to the mix, because it’s not like we don’t hear enough about men. Each to their own, but here are some versions of the meme that have rung the truest to us.