I'm Convinced That TikTok's ‘Fridgescaping’ Trend Is Quietly Keeping Women in the Kitchen

Let's return to the viral ‘girl fridge’ video for a moment. The creator says, “I know it might be silly but this is an area of my home that brings me so much dopamine when done right.’” Essentially, she’s saying fridgescaping is benign—it’s a fun way to add charm to the banality of meal prepping and grocery shopping. But when we zoom out, it’s impossible to ignore how this trend ties into the recent sensationalization of “girlhood.” For decades, the kitchen has been culturally positioned as a woman’s domain, a place where she’s expected to prepare meals, raise children and manage the household——that is, unless it’s a celebrated Michelin Star restaurant. Fridgescaping rebrands that role in a shiny, Instagram-friendly bow, selling homemaking as aspirational self-expression. And when you pair it with other sixties-inspired trends like kitschens and hostingcore, it signals a nostalgic—and troubling—return to antiquated values.

It’s no coincidence these trends gained traction at the same time America leaned conservative in the polls. Fridgescaping, touted as a playful way to “make every day pretty,” carries a subtle message beneath its dainty bowls: a woman’s time is still most valuable spent in the kitchen. It encourages us to direct our ideas inward—literally, spending hours decorating the inside of a fridge—rather than pushing creativity beyond our homes for a broader impact. What’s most insidious about the trend is how imperceptibly it seems to rewrite history. At its core, it pulls from the same rhetoric of the 1960s—“I’m just a girl—a reinforced idea that women are incapable of handling complex tasks. It packages regression in a cutesy, aesthetic fridge that says helplessness is endearing, not limiting. (The scariest part is that many women forget that, not so long ago, organizing a fridge was all we could do.)

Furthermore, what's most ironic about this trend is how it makes homemaking more difficult. Fridgescaping glamorizes archaic norms while adding unnecessary complexity to a space that’s meant to simplify. As critics on Reddit aptly pointed out, fridges are appliances: intended to preserve food and make cooking easier. For a family of five, a fridge filled with vases and floral arrangements becomes a logistical nightmare. Not to mention the upkeep—are you supposed to beautify after every weekly Trader Joe’s haul? While cooking is an art, and homemaking itself can be creative, fridgescaping blurs the line between functionality and frivolity. It sells an impractical ideal that, for many, only adds to the already overwhelming demands of managing a home. (I can’t stop envisioning Betty Draper’s “sad clown dress” from Mad Men, above.)

In many ways, in fact, fridgescaping feels like a modern riff on Betty Draper's archetype: a housewife with a meticulously curated exterior that conceals the immense effort required to maintain it. It reminds us how domestic spaces have long been used to minimize a woman’s skillset while concurrently wearing her down from said skills. From keeping track of expiration dates to ensuring everyone gets the nutrition they need, just the act of keeping the fridge stocked is a thankless and never-ending task. Yet, trends like fridgescaping romanticize the labor it takes to maintain—and the lack of appreciation that often comes with it. It’s a different era, but the messaging feels eerily similar: A woman is to be seen and not heard. Beauty and perfection is tantamount. Don’t bore anyone with the details of the process. 

And so, before rearranging those berries into porcelain bowls, it’s worth pausing to ask: who is this really for? Is it about finding joy in the mundane or feeding into a system that asks women to use their creativity in service of an idealized home? Whether you love it or loathe it, one thing is certain: fridgescaping isn’t just about food. It’s about the stories we tell in front of—and behind—closed doors.