Feminist movements have gone through many iterations, and philosophers have been at odds with each other since its beginning.
It’s hard to define equality for all when equality doesn’t look the same for everyone.
For that reason, feminism has birthed sub-movements of its own. From Black feminism, which focuses on the intersectionality of gender and race to ecofeminism, which argues the oppression of women is linked to the degradation of the environment, groups have created their own categories when they feel the mainstream idea doesn’t fully represent them.
There is no “right” way to be a feminist, but I do have to question if every movement claimed under the feminist umbrella is legitimate or not.
I’ve seen “bimbo feminism” circulating various social media platforms since 2020. Outside of viral, comedic posts, I never fully paid attention to it or took it seriously. Hot girls want the right to be hot. Groundbreaking.
To my surprise, bimbo feminism wasn’t quickly forgotten about and replaced with another trendy buzz word as I once thought. In fact, it has only seemed to grow in popularity over the past year with the major blockbuster hit “Barbie” being heralded as a “bimbo feminism” film.
For those who don’t know, bimbo feminism seeks to reclaim a derogatory term and redefine it as a radical movement of women who are hyper feminine and sexually free. I’ll be honest, it had me in the first half. Where it fully loses me is its focus on physical appearances and its rejection of being smart.
Bimbo feminism’s purpose is to disengage from adhering to patriarchal ideals. It is saying to the world: Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I have to prove my intelligence to you or renounce my sexuality to be taken seriously. However, I would argue it only reinforces old-fashioned stereotypes of feminine women being dumb and only fit for male sexualization.
How is being a proud bimbo “sticking it to the man” when it is perpetuating stereotypes of women?
I’m not against women liking pink, focusing on their physical appearances and jokingly calling themselves stupid because I am that woman. However, I am against the idea of it being a radical feminist movement.
Being attractive and feminine exactly coincides with what has been socially acceptable for women for centuries. Pink is a baby girl’s marker for a reason, and the makeup industry only grows every year. Women have been fighting to be seen as multi-dimensional human beings and not as sexual objects for pleasure.
But what really baffles me is when creators repackage real world events and dumb them down for their female audiences.
Self-proclaimed bimbo @nikitadumptruck on TikTok recently came under fire for doing the same shtick on the Palestine-Israel conflict and framing it as two girls wanting to have their birthday party at the same venue.
While dumbing down the Palestine-Israel conflict “for the girls” is offensive enough, it only upholds the stereotype of women being too vapid and too stupid to understand real world affairs. We are only reinforcing old sentiments that were used against women to bar them from holding government positions and going to college.
Women have made it so far, and I wonder if movements like “bimbo feminism” are only being reductive to the strides we’ve made.
Not everything has to be taken seriously all the time, but we shouldn’t be discouraging learning and understanding complicated topics. Doing so only does a disservice to what we are talking about and us. Doing so only gives more fuel to misogynists’ fire.
We are more than being girly and looking hot and we need to remember that.
Faith Fistler is an opinion writer. Contact her at [email protected].
