#importantlessonsinfeminism

Buffy The Vampire Slayer turns 20 years of age and as a massive fan who has been watching it since I was 10 years old, here are my top ten feminist lessons and moments from the show.

1. Self Reliance and the Strength Within.

One thing that Buffy as a show tackled well was the importance and downfall of being a self-reliant, independent woman in today’s world. What aided her in her defeat of her abusive vamp ex was also what isolated her from her friends and family. Buffy showed that whilst as a woman it is important to have friends and family but it is vital to draw from the strength within whilst also not being afraid to ask for help. 

Angelus: Now that's everything, huh? No weapons... No friends...No hope. Take all that away... and what's left? Buffy: Me.

2. Joyce - single mother extraordinaire

Joyce Summer’s was the single mother to Buffy and also Dawn (it’s a whole thing)

She was kind, caring and to a point, pretty understanding. She freaked out about Buffy losing her virginity and being a vampire slayer but throughout it all she was always there for her daughter. She squared off power hungry principals, vampires and even a killer slayer, she defended her child and she did it alone. She vowed to protect and love Dawn especially after finding out she wasn’t really her biological daughter and taught Buffy compassion and responsibility in a way she had never faced, despite saving the world numerous times. 

Her death contributed to one of the most heartbreaking tv episodes ever seen (and there’s a lot!) it was real, raw and not like anything television at that time had seen. It was a testament to her character and what she meant to Buffy, her friends and also to the show and its fans.

Joyce: You get the hell away from my daughter!

3. Women and Sexuality 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer pushed boundaries in many ways but one of the most important boundaries was that of the first lesbian sex scene on network television in America. Whilst some aren’t fans of using magic as a subtext of their relationship, Tara and Willow’s relationship grew in one of the most well rounded, healthy and honest relationships on the entire show. Willow’s gradual exploration and realisation of her sexuality is also important. Everyone regardless of how they define their sexuality comes to realise it and navigate it in different ways. 

The show also tackled straight female sexuality, from Buffy’s loss of virginity to who she thought was the right guy but turned nasty, to Kendra’s shy engagement with boys to Faith’s open and care free attitude, there was always a strong message that sex and sexuality was important and different for each female character in the show  and can mean different things at different times in your life. The main message for young women is, as long as your choices are healthy and make you happy, who really cares?!

Willow: ...and I think I’m kinda gay?

4. What it feels like to be just a girl. 

Buffy isn’t a natural superhero, from the film and the flashbacks she was a cheerleading prom loving girl who was Chosen and had her destiny forced upon her.

From the episode Prophecy Girl where Buffy finds out she’s going to die, to explaining what being a slayer is to her mother and lamenting on wanting to just paint her nails, Buffy struggles with what it means to have so much responsibility, face all the darkness in the world whilst just wanting to be a normal girl.

Whether its discrimination in the workplace, our right to abortions, sexual assault, maternity rights and all the problems women face, it can feel like the weight of the world is on our shoulders and that we are fighting daily battles and making sacrifices just to get by. 

But we’re all just girls, we all have dreams, hopes and aspirations. We all have silly things we do to make ourselves feel better and we all want to be loved and respected.

We all want equality for everyone and right now, to do that, we’ve got to keep slaying.

Kid: But you're... you're just a girl. Buffy: ....That's what I keep saying.

5. Male allies

The men in Buffy are definitely second fiddle but are vital. I’m going to start by admitting that re-watching the first couple of season of Buffy, Xander is a bit dick! Right got that out of my system, but just like the women in the show he grew and learnt and became the heart of the group. From his unwavering support of Buffy, his iconic pep talk with Dawn which makes me cry every time, to saving the world by reminding Willow of her humanity. Xander became the best friend you wish you had.

Giles became Buffy’s father figure quite early on in the series and accepted her for all her faults and never judged her for it. He jeopardised his job by standing up to the patriarchal system that made him her Watcher and pretty much tortured her, he was willing to die and kill for her and took all of her friends under his wing as well. 

It’s important to remind ourselves that Feminism is about equality so if you’re lucky enough to have male allies around you, appreciate their value and support.Yes, they are doing as they should but whilst they may benefit from it more that us, they are also victims of the Patriachy as well.  If they’re fighting to good fight and not intimated by your strength, I say hats off to you sirs!

Buffy: But this is all my fault.

Rupert Giles: No. I don't believe it is. Do you want me to wag my finger at you and tell you that you acted rashly? You did. And I can. I know that you loved him. And he has proven more than once that he loved you. You couldn't have known what would happen. The coming months are gonna be hard. I suspect on all of us, but if it's guilt you're looking for, Buffy, I'm not your man. 

All you will get from me  is my support. And my respect.

7. The Slayer, The Mother, The Geek, The Prom Queen, The Killer, The Demon, The Witch, The Key 

Labels are placed on women all the time and can feel suffocated by the expectations around that, where its mother, career women, whore, virgin, girly or tomboy, society rarely allows to be all these things or none. We have to fall into one group or another and if we try and mix them around we get called up on being contrary or worse - attempting to ‘have it all.’

You can label each one of the main women that make up the Buffyverse but each one defies its stereotype growing into complex and realised people, just like everyday women. 

Buffy was a peppy pretty girl with a secret and evolved to a maternal yet isolated warrior who had grown tired of the weight of being a Slayer, to finally embracing her role as a leader a teacher. Willow was a geek and also an all powerful witch, Faith was a killer but was also vulnerable, Anya was a demon who also was a doting girlfriend. 

Their stereotypes are fantasy extremes but each character was one thing at the start and something different by the end, they are real, three-dimensional women growing, learning, falling and rising up again.

Buffy: I'm cookie dough. I'm not done baking. I'm not finished becoming who ever the hell it is I'm gonna turn out to be. I make it through this, and the next thing, and the next thing, and maybe one day, I turn around and realize I'm ready. I'm cookies.

8. Misogyny can kill even the strongest of women

In one of the weaker seasons of Buffy, season 6 did however thrive in tackling the subject of misogyny.  After Buffy comes back from the dead, she is left feeling lost, alone and seeking sexual solace in Spike, a vampire. When she realises that their relationship isn’t healthy and that she’s been sleeping with him for all the wrong reasons, he doesn’t take it well. He in fact, tries to rape her. This is something that women all over the world face and this theme is furthered by her human nemesis Warren who is particularly sexist and when she asserts her physical strength over him/‘emasculating’ him, he responds by coming into her home, shooting her and killing Tara in the process.

Violence and sexual assault against women is a very real problem in society and no matter how much we tell girls to dress a certain way, to not ‘tease men’ and to ‘cater to their ego’ even the Slayer herself can be victim to a system that perpetuates an idea that women are at fault and men are left blameless. We need to stop this because also we don’t have Willow to turn evil and become a vengeful super witch. 

Willow: You never felt you had the power with her, not until you killed her. 

Warren: Women. You know, you're just like the rest of them. Mind games.

9. Diversity and Intersectionality are key

One of the downfalls of Buffy is its lack of diversity. Show runners have admitted it and done their best to learn from it with future shows paving the way for awesome characters like Zoe Washburne from Firefly and Melinda May from Agents of Shield who are both similar in characteristics to Buffy but also women of colour.  

But one way that the show tackled their shortcomings of diversity with previous characters was when we met The First Slayer. 

The First Slayer was an African woman kidnap and imbued her with demonic powers by 3 men who became The Watcher’s Council. 

Now she’s far from perfect and how the whole concept and how its portrayed is problematic as hell, one might even go as far to say that its pretty racist. 

But they could have easily made The First Slayer white, they could’ve made her ethnically ambiguous etc but by making her black they not only recognized the importance of race and Africa in The Slayer’s origins story but also the in human race itself. 

Here presence itself lead to the origins of other Slayers and Potential Slayers to be slightly more diverse and we see it full effect in the seventh and final season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer from dodging accents, varying sexualities, ethnicities, sub-cultures and general characteristics. The Potentials may also be terrible stereotypes but to some people (me in this case) when it comes to early forms of representing intersectional feminism, I’ll take what I can get.

Either way, Buffy as a character and the‘Wheddonverse’ in general are indebted to the First Slayer.

First Slayer via Tara: You think you know what's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun.

10. The Sisterhood

One thing I’ve always loved about Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the sisterhood. They may not all love each other and be best friends but when it came down to it, they had each others back. From Cordelia stepping up to fight the demons and even offering a vulnerable Buffy a ride home to Willow saving Anya’s life even when she had reverted to being a demon to even Faith proudly being by Buffy’s side in the final fight. Buffy’s friendships and female allies taught us that its important to have different types of women from different backgrounds and opinions and that each add value to your life. Female friendships can be challenging and complex in a world when were are constantly pitted against each other but more than ever its important to celebrate and covet what unites us. 

In the final episode Buffy decides to give up her title by having Willow make every potential slayer an actual Slayer, it’s final message of the show was using that sisterhood to pass on the power and strength to a new generation may it be potential slayers or our daughters and students because whilst we may have made progress, we still having many demons to fight.