This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s fall editorial intern Alayna Thomas. Find her on Instagram at @ratatoolie. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
Dating and relationships are topics that my friends and I think about and discuss a lot. I believe that at this time, it can be very difficult to date. Not only are there an abundance of dating apps and websites, there are also shifting expectations for both men and women when it comes to relationships. As a society, we are caught in between breaking the gender binary but still expecting people to uphold it. For example, both men and women are in the workplace, but women are still expected to be housewives and men are expected to be breadwinners. It’s all very confusing.
Now, I swear that my phone is wiretapped or my apps can hear me talking. Soon after I strongly started considering dating seriously, I started seeing a woman that I only knew as ‘Sprinkle Sprinkle’ popping up on my social media feeds.
What does sprinkle sprinkle mean? It is a phrase used by SheraSeven while talking on her live streams. Usually a woman will ask her a question, like ‘do looks matter when looking for a man?’ Shera will respond with something like ‘no. Looks cannot buy you a home. Sprinkle sprinkle’. Sprinkle sprinkle means that you are a feminine woman looking for a man to provide.
SheraSeven is one of the more prominent female dating coaches online. She has stated that she does not give dating advice and calls herself a ‘financial advisor’, but let’s be for real. If you are giving advice to women on how to date rich men… you are, in fact, a dating coach. But I digress.
She livestreams on YouTube and plenty of her clips go viral on TikTok and Twitter— that’s where I first saw her. She has many funny quips, which make her go viral. But, some women do take her words seriously.
Shera makes it clear that she did not marry her husband for love. She did it for financial gain (this is why she calls herself a financial advisor). She espouses these values to her followers. It does not matter if you don’t love your husband or don’t think that he’s attractive. If his wallet is right, you should date him.
I can see the appeal of her words. As I mentioned, women are still pigeonholed into a homemaker role. So, if a woman is expected to abide by that role, it is not outlandish for her to expect her boyfriend or husband to be a provider. Additionally, Shera is a Black woman and many of her followers are too. For much of history, Black women have been expected to work (contrary to the ‘all women were housewives in the 1950’s’ belief). So, I understand why Black women especially are drawn to her promises of obtaining a luxury lifestyle if you obtain a wealthy man.
However, Shera is not without her detractors. Many social media users have pointed out that it’s not fun to date someone if you don’t love them, which I agree with. Users have also stated that women fought so hard to enter the workspace because of spousal financial abuse. What if your husband decides not to give you your allowance? If you haven’t worked for a while and you both break up, what happens?
SheraSeven’s content is somewhat part of the Femininity Coaching Sphere. I will note that she does not focus much on women being feminine or ‘tapping into their femininity’, however, she can be seen as the start of a pipeline. Female dating coaches heavily overlap with femininity coaches.
Femininity coaches are women (and some men) who coach other women to be more feminine. They tell these women that most of the problems in their life— financial, marital, physical and mental health— all stem from the fact that they are not tapped into their divine femininity.
Another popular person that is in this sphere is Coach Stormy Wellington. She states that she is a businesswoman who owns multi-level marketing businesses. But, I would say that she is a fraudster who runs pyramid schemes. She also hosts many retreats for women to learn how to run businesses and embrace their femininity.
Coach Stormy went viral a few years ago for berating a woman for having too much food on her plate. She called it ‘low vibration’ and said that a plate that looks like that is not fit for a queen.
Herein lies the issue with femininity coaching and figures like SheraSeven and Coach Stormy. They latch onto women who are struggling with loneliness and financial issues. They say that the way to fix your problems is to either be more feminine or to date a wealthy man.
The feminine coaching sphere is problematic in other ways. I went on a femininity coaches website to learn more about their services and I found an interesting chart. On it, they list qualities of female energy and masculine energy. Under ‘female energy’, we see words like ‘nurture’, ‘receptive’, and ‘adaptive’. Under masculine energy, we see words like ‘logical’, ‘thinking’, and ‘assertive’.
Having those words be associated with different genders reinforces gender stereotypes. Is an assertive, driven, smart woman not tapped into her femininity? Is a creative, intuitive, adaptable man not divinely masculine? Are we, as women, vying for male validation so much that we will listen to women who want us to submit to rigid roles?
We also cannot forget about intersectionality. Most of the femininity coaching content that I have seen has been slightly targeted to Black women. Black women are often masculinized and are targets of transvestigating, a new phenomenon where social media users find ‘proof’ that someone is transgender. I understand why so many would be drawn to this content. However, these coaches are encouraging Black women to abide by White American and European standards of femininity. As Black women, we will never be able to live up to those expectations and will always be blocked out.
I won’t lie, I do find some of those clips from SheraSeven to be entertaining. Also, there is nothing wrong with agreeing with her and other coaches at times. After all, a broken clock is right twice a day. However, we have to be careful and mindful of those who exploit our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. We should not be so caught up on male attention and performing our gender correctly that we end up losing our personalities.
Do you listen to femininity coaches? If someone asked you: ‘what does sprinkle sprinkle mean’, could you answer them? Let us know in the comments below!
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