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When people think of Miami, they likely picture something like this: beautiful beaches, sexy nightclubs, conversational Spanglish, and…a certain type of woman. The last stereotype is so prevalent that I don’t even need to describe her for you to summon a mental image.
For the sake of clarity, I’ll do it anyway. As Kanye puts it, “I’m not saying she’s a gold digger, but she’s not messing no broke, broke…” She’s sexy, she knows what she wants, and most of us probably can’t afford her.
The appeal of this woman is undeniable. Attractiveness is her main currency, and people stare. Poor fools shoot their shots, and when the men who covet them are turned down, extorted, or shamed for not having enough money or clout to procure tickets to Carbone Beach during F1 week, the rejected will often lash out, generalize, and — most horrifyingly — make podcasts.
Here’s the thing: There are more than 1 million women in Miami-Dade County, and while the census doesn’t (yet) ask these questions, the vast majority don’t have OnlyFans profiles, caviar-only first date requirements, or sugar daddies. In fact, I’m willing to bet that most of us only encounter these Miami girls in passing and usually exactly where we can expect to see them — fancy restaurants and bars, clubs, sometimes gyms, and occasionally buying groceries (a girl’s gotta eat).
Most of the time, we’re surrounded by the rest of the women in Miami — women who have 9-to-5s and wouldn’t dream of asking for rent money on a first date. Despite the chatter on social media and the aforementioned podcasts, this is the real status quo in Miami. Still, our sensational reputation precedes us.
Dark humor
As someone who hasn’t shied away from the Miami girl stereotype in my New Times columns, I understand how easy it is to pretend that the women here are mostly the flashy kind, or to shrug it off as something to laugh about before moving on to more pressing local issues, like traffic, government corruption, and high-profile sex scandals.
The problem, though, is that the more we joke about it, the more we start believing that the generalization is the rule. Therein lies the dark side of all stereotypes, and how they evolve into the type of prejudice that inspired one manosphere influencer to declare that he’s “discovered a new species,” called “the Miami girl.” He goes on to describe this species as a “primate” who doesn’t cook, clean, or work and yet carries an $8,000 handbag and expects caviar for breakfast. People in the comment section cheered and told him he’d hit the nail on the head. The rest of us might want to scream, “We aren’t all like that!” but the damage is already done.
A term called “irony poisoning” has been gaining popularity in the last decade to describe what happens when repeated generalities (typically from social media and other online sources) eventually blur the line in someone’s mind between the original irony or “joke” of a situation and just becomes fact. The phrase has been used to explain how “innocent” jokes on topics like race, culture, gender, and sexual orientation can eventually lead to actual internalized racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and homophobia.
Sure, there are worse offenses in the world than conflating the entire female population of a metro area with lavish lifestyles and gold-digging tendencies, but the 99 percent appear to be getting fed up with the stereotype.
Miami women sound off
I posted a callout on social media asking local women how they felt about the “Miami girl” label, and the most common response I received was “thank you for doing this.”
One person wrote back that she felt like simply existing in the city as a single woman was a red flag for men, even though she is a self-reliant career woman. Another admitted to lying about where she’s from to avoid any negative preconceived notions.
Multiple women said the “OG Miami” wasn’t like that, which made me nostalgic for the days when we could meet for drinks at the hotel bars of yesterday. We all knew there were working girls sitting at the bar, but no one judged them while they did their thing, or us while we did ours (getting drunk and possibly ending up fully clothed inside the pool).
It’s true that the last decade has brought more money, more partying, and an even more transactional reputation to the Magic City than ever before (not that we have ever been all that innocent). The appeal of the fast and flashy has become exponentially more visible in post-pandemic Miami. Sometimes, it’s even contagious.
One friend recently confided to me that when she first moved to Miami and began dating here, she had an app guy fly all the way across the Atlantic to see her, but she was still disappointed when he made a reservation at a restaurant other than Mila, the undisputed hotspot at the time. She’s since moved overseas and is grateful for the slower pace of life and dating.
I’m not suggesting that we ditch the “Miami girl” label completely, or that we ignore the fact that a wealthy man with a generous spirit would be catnip for a baddie at the Faena bar, but we should acknowledge that the stereotype can be harmful — even to the women who reap its benefits — and recognize that most local women are looking for connection, not $500 meals and expensive gifts.
