WEBVTT

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A trope is a common pattern in a story or a recognizable attribute in

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a character that conveys information to the audience.

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A trope becomes a cliche when it's overused.

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Sadly, some of these tropes often perpetuate offensive stereotypes.

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Every now and then, in Hollywoodland a character that's identified as a feminist will magically make its way

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through the production process and appear on our television screens

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unfortunately this is almost never good.

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What the Hollywood machine churns out is a distorted and warped version of feminism

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which bares little resemblance to actual feminist movements.

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In a desperate quest to distance themselves, their plots and their characters

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from anything that could in anyway be mistakenly mistaken for feminism

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Hollywood writers rely on one of the most deceptive and disgusting tropes ever to be forged in the fires of mount doom.

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That trope is called The Straw Feminist.

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In television and movies The Straw Feminist works by deliberately creating an exaggerated caricature of a feminist

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Which writers then fill with a bunch of oversimplifications, misrepresentations and stereotypes

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to try to make it easy to discredit or delegitimize feminism.

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The goal is to make feminists and our movements look completely ridiculous, over the top and unnecessary.

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In terms of media representation, one of the most disturbing example of the Straw Feminist can be found in the 3rd season of Veronica Mars.

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Sadly, the Veronica Mars writing team turned the last season into a train wreak

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partially by introducing a group of Straw Feminists as villains in the series.

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Characters like these serve to undermine and discredit feminist movements

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but they also serves to separate female leads who are smart, strong and witty,

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in this case, Veronica, from any association with feminism.

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The Straw Feminist character is part of a fictional post-feminist world that only exists in Hollywood.

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The trope is a tool that's used to promote the fallacy that everyone is already equal.

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What’s exceptionally frustrating is that these characters often bring up legitimate feminist concerns

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about women’s rights and women’s equality but those concerns are quickly undermined

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by the writers making the characters seem over the top, crazy, and extremist.

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For example the Straw Feminist appears in Married with Children as Marcy D’Arcy, the irritating and pompous neighbour.

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In this case, the Straw Feminist is coded as the castrating wife who emasculates and dominates her docile, stupid husband.

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We see the trope repeated in Rugrats with Phil and Lil's mother

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who Wikipedia describes as “Quite the jock and women's-libber”

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and we can also recognize her as a straw feminist because of the giant woman's symbol on her sweater.

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Much like Marcy she's framed as the castrating wife who barks orders at her submissive husband.

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In 2001's Legally Blonde the writers threw in a Straw Feminist for cheap laughs

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who believes that the word “semester” is an evil conspiracy against women.

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"Take the word semester okay? It is the perfect example of this school's discriminatory preference

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of semen to ovaries, that's why I'm petitioning to have next term be referred to as

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the winter ov-es-ter."

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Another problematic example comes from the Powerpuff Girls episode, “Equal Fights” in the third season.

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The Girls encounter a female villain named Femme Fatale

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who we can immediately see is a Straw Feminist because she has the

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oh-so-terrifying woman’s symbol on her mask, her clothes

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and even as her weapon.

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The episode begins with the traditional pan around Townsville showing us that gender inequality is not a problem.

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"A city where everyone gets their fair turn"

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Even boys and girls on the playground get along.

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"Your turn Jenny... think fast"

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"Oops"

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"Very funny Joey.

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"You're gonna get it"

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But this harmonious balance is deviously disrupted by Femme Fatale and her conniving, deceptive women's rights rhetoric.

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Curiously though, Femme Fatale brings up some pretty valid points

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about the lack of female faces on American money,

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or the lack of female superheroes in pop culture.

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"Surely, you've noticed, female superheroes aren't nearly as revered as male superheroes."

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"Sure they are!"

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"There's Supergirl, Batgirl"

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"They're so lame"

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"Merely extensions of their male counterparts."

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The Girls are influenced by Femme Fatale’s malicious rhetoric to see benign, routine every day things

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as a conspiracy against women and against them personally.

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The writers of the Powerpuff Girls have carefully created a fantasy world without gender oppression,

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so that they can have the Girls start seeing oppression where none exists.

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"We saw what you did Joey Finklemeyer"

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"Whhaaa'd I do?"

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"Shut up!"

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"Don't play dumb with us!"

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"I've finally caught up on all the housework and all that's left is your room."

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"If you could take care of that please."

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"uh, I'll just do it later"

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"Why don't you get some big strong man to save your precious city?"

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"Or better yet why don't you stop making women do your dirty work and do it yourself!"

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The problem is, all of these things that the Powerpuff Girls are complaining about are actually happening!

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Girls are getting bullied on school yards

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and women are overwhelmingly responsible for household duties.

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Women are being institutionally oppressed all the time in nearly every facet of our lives.

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Once again this trope is used to separate the Powerpuff Girls from any notion

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that they could in anyway possibly be feminist characters.

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Because you know you awesome, funny, world saving, independent young women

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but you know, not feminist...

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The straw feminist trope is taken to a whole new level in adult animation shows

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such as South Park or Family Guy.

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In the episode "I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar" the Family Guy writers took a stab at feminist attorney Gloria Allred.

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Allred is known for taking on high-profile cases defending women who have been assaulted or harassed.

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In this attack, the Family Guy writers created a character coincidentally named Gloria Ironbox

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who brainwashes Peter into thinking he is a woman, after he is accused of sexual harassment.

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The emasculation and feminization of Peter and his sudden transformation into a feminist is played for laughs.

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"I can't respect men, men are the reason our world is in such lousy shape."

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"If men were as caring as women we wouldn't have crime or violence."

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Because you know, nothing is worse in a patriarchal society then being a woman,

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except maybe being a feminist...

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In these fictional narratives institutional oppression and wide scale sexism just doesn’t exist.

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It’s a carefully constructed world where feminism is no longer needed.

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Even the comic book world delves into this trope, with Y the Last Man.

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When all the men on earth die except for one,

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there is a extremist homicidal group called the Daughters of the Amazons.

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The violent, vigilante group is founded on the disdain and hatred of men

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and anyone who mourns the death of men

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even though there aren’t anymore men.

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Let's get back to Veronica Mars,

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there is a 9 episode story arc in the 3rd season about a series of rapes that occur on the University Campus.

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A group of straw feminists on campus hold demonstrations,

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volunteer with the Ride Home Safe campus program to escort young women home,

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and demand that the university institute an official sexual code of conduct.

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All of these are logical, rational and important steps to creating safer college campuses.

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However, the writer quickly dismisses these characters as irrational, stubborn, pigheaded man-haters,

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and it serves to fulfill the tired old stereotypes about angry and militant women of colour.

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"Pig"

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"Rapist"

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"Pig"

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The writers of Veronica Mars takes the Straw Feminist to an obscene level

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by actually having them "fake a rape" in order to blame the fraternity.

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Women lying about sexual assault is a grossly overused myth.

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Women generally don’t put themselves through the social shame of admitting assault for petty personal revenge.

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In just a handful of episodes the creators of Veronica Mars undermine the work that

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thousands of students are doing globally on there campuses to end violence against women.

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While we see the Straw Feminist over and over again in television and movies,

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it’s also unfortunately deployed on a regular basis by American talk shows and news pundits.

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Mainstream religious and conservative news media often attack women with

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deliberate misrepresentations and extreme exaggerations of what feminism is.

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This false impression has been infused into the mainstream by popular talk show hosts

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such as Michael Savage, Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly.

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You may have heard the slur "Feminazi" popularized by Rush Limbaugh.

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A term used to discredit and demonize any woman fighting for social equality.

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"The feminists, the feminazis have been working for years to this end,"

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"advance women by diminishing men."

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Ya...

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The Straw Feminist is set up to perpetuate and advance the myth that feminism is no longer needed,

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that we have arrived at gender equality

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and anyone who disagrees is quickly demeaned and portrayed as an extremist.

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This trope represents a backlash against feminism and groups supporting women’s rights.

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As we make more gains towards equality, the backlash gets stronger.

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It’s an old yet effective tactic but clearly it's working because I often hear young women saying,

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"I believe in the equal rights of women but I'm not a feminist."

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This sentiment is a direct result of the straw feminist trope.

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Because women want to distance themselves from the extreme and false representations they are seeing on tv, movies and talk shows.

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We need to proudly claim the title and fight back against these distorted and demeaning representations in the media and in real life,

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and if y’all really do believe in the equality of women then we need to continue this long legacy of feminism and fight for it.

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And Hollywood, get over your fear of strong, smart and talented women

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and stop contributing to the backlash by writing absurd and ridiculous Straw Feminist characters.

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Now I will leave you with Polly Bergen saying something pretty awesome

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on the otherwise unremarkable show Commander in Chief.

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"Look just because it matters to mom doesn't mean it matters to me."

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"I mean, I'm no feminist."

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"So you don't believe that women should have rights equal to those of men"

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"w..well of course I do... it's just-"

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"Might I suggest my dear"

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"that you look up the definition of feminist."

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♪ Feminists don't have a sense of humor ♪

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♪ Feminists just want to be alone ♪

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♪ Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo ♪