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Tropes vs. Women: #6 The Straw Feminist

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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 which 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 to 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 'k, 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

    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 assault.
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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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    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.  

    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...

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. Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo"
Title:
Tropes vs. Women: #6 The Straw Feminist
Description:

The Straw Feminist trope is a deliberately created, exaggerated caricature of a feminist that is used to undermine and ridicule feminist movements.
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Video Language:
English
Team:
Feminist Frequency
Duration:
10:20

English subtitles

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