I came to the realization that calling something “Girlboss Feminism” and “Corporate Feminism” became the woke version of calling a female character a “Mary Sue”, and now I’m sorry, but I’m unironically pro Girlboss Feminism.
I understand the criticisms and I agree with every one of them: A woman’s worth shouldn’t be judged by how powerful and strong she is, and just because a woman achieved a position of power it doesn’t mean all other societal issues are fixed. Class is still a big issue at the end of the day.
But I came to the realization that every story or trope about womanhood is attacked viciously by all sides in popular conversations and this can’t be good. Stories about women are always labeled as “cliche”, “weird”, “pandering”, “not needed”, sometimes even by left-leaning people.
Coming of age stories about women are viciously attacked as being cliche and cringy, while coming of age stories of men are natural, no matter how much more cliche and widespread they are. Plenty of female-led stories are as weakly written as many male-led stories.
If a woman is strong and competent it’s “not realistic”, “girlboss”, “pandering”. When she’s funny and quirky she’s “ridiculous”, “unfunny”, or “too annoying”.
Stories about women are always subject to an insane level of scrutiny, while stories about men are just allowed to exist. We are reaching a point where in every single fandom space a single message is being spread, “Stories about women are inherently bad”. This is not good.
The Brosphere and the incel movement are growing exponentially, and everyday tons of teenage boys, and more worryingly, teenage girls are being taught that a woman should always be dependent on a man, and that any woman who deviates from gender roles is bad or “just a girlboss”.
I feel like the backlash against Girlboss feminism is being used by Right wingers to brainwash more girls into thinking that their whole worth should be based on having a man by their side. Maybe this hypercriticism of girl power feminism is doing more harm than good.
And there’s the issue of representation. If every story about women creates insane amounts of backlash online, both from the Left and the Right, executives will eventually learn that maybe they should stop doing stories about women to avoid creating unnecessary culture war fights. Creators and studios do respond to incentives, including audience reactions and perceived controversy. That’s not good.
I think that’s the problem with Feminism nowadays. Too many people want it to be too many opposite things, and to fix all other society ills. But we can’t allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. Maybe feminism should be that women should have agency in their lives, either to be stay at home moms or girlbosses if they so wish.
Believe me, Girlboss Feminism can be extremely fake and pandering, but believe me, Corporate Misogyny is worse, and I fear with all this infight about women stories, and the amount of power the incel movement and the manosphere are getting, maybe that’s a possibility.
We have become so eager to deconstruct every portrayal of female power that we're forgetting that it's okay for stories to simply celebrate women being capable, independent, or heroic. Not every female protagonist has to carry the burden of perfectly representing feminist theory. So, yeah, I think girl power stories are still needed, no matter how pandering they can be.
@ariel-seagull-wings @thealmightyemprex @the-blue-fairie @princesssarisa @tamisdava2
