#6 The Straw Feminist (Tropes vs. Women)

The Straw Feminist trope is a deliberately created, exaggerated caricature of a feminist that is used to undermine and ridicule feminist movements. This was probably one of the most difficult and longest videos I've made so far, partly because the Straw Feminist is a very complex and twisted representation. I actually cut out about 5 minutes of actual analysis to keep the video at a reasonable viewing time. The Straw Feminist trope has many more facets and MANY more examples but I hope I was able to provide a general overview.

More links and full transcript available at www.feministfrequency.com

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Commander in Chief
• Disney
• Family Guy
• Legally Blonde
• Married with Children
• Mary Poppins
• Rugrats
• Rush Limbaugh
• Glenn Beck
• Michael Savage
• Bill O'Reilly
• Straw Feminist
• The Ice Princess
• The Powerpuff Girls
• Veronica Mars
• Y The Last Man
• Tropes
• Feminism
• Feminist
• Feminist Frequency
• Anita Sarkeesian

[bubblepopelektrikk]

in one of my classes where we were discussing the feminist movement, one girl said she believed that the Feminism as a social movement was over. She thinks we live in a post-feminism world. How can I argue we don't without getting hot headed and sounding "irrational?"

[feministfrequency]

@bubblepopelektrikk Well I'd say that the person in your class is being irrational since the evidence is all around us, you can provide some simple statistics: gender disparity in pay, violence against women, male domination of all major institutions such as government, corporations, Hollywood etc.

[patrifiedy2k]

Hey, I have a question. What do you think of 2 Broke Girls?

[feministfrequency]

@patrifiedy2k I wrote a paragraph about it on my website in an article titled "I Watched the Fall Premieres So You Don’t Have To"

[Eosimias100]

Feminism, atheism, and environmentalism must be the three most poorly understood and misrepresented philosophies in America.

I don't know how many people I've heard say things like "I believe in equal rights between genders, but I'm no feminist" or "I care about the planet, but I'm not an environmentalist." I've even heard atheists described their own atheism ("I'm not convinced there's a God") but insist that their "agnostic, but not atheist" (as if the two are mutually exclusive).

[europegirlh2o]

Wow. You totally represent feminists in a positive way. I'm still kind of realizing that the world indeed is not just, and that being bothered by it is not a bad thing. So thanks for the video.

[egmorox13]

I love the song at the end!

[taylorgoodman93]

more trope videos! :) i love these.

[khlova]

Do you have any videos giving examples of well written, respectable Female characters?

Because I am honestly curious about your thoughts on the matter.

[ToruKun1]

I'm surprised that you mentioned Phil and Lil's mom but not Jessie Spano from Saved By The Bell. In terms of child/tween-centric shows she was one of the biggest Straw Feminists/Granola Girls/Soapbox Sadies I can remember.

[aNGLICANcHOIR92]

Powerpuff Girls was my favorite show when I was a little girl because I felt like there was finally a good show about girls who did well in school and did cool things like fighting crime. I've never seen the Femme Fatal episode, but I'm deeply saddened to know that it exists.

Anyway, great analysis. We need more people like you around to call bullshit.

[EuphrasieF]

@ArcaneSky

To an extent, though, I think Mrs. Banks is balanced to an extent out by the portrayal of her husband - he is equally indifferent to his children and off in his own world.

You are right that ''the only adult female characters in it are the mother, the birdlady, and domestics". But the flip side of that is that there are not any admirable adult male characters (except maybe for Bert.) There's Mr. Banks' colleagues, Uncle Albert, the policeman, the crazy old sailor... not much else.