If "Millennial Feminism" Is Dead, Can We Not Replace It With Something More Insane?
There's plenty to criticize about the brand of feminism that ruled the 2010s--but some of today's trending movements are just as stupid.
According to Helen Lewis and many others in the cultural zeitgeist, millennial feminism is dead. In case you’re wondering what “millennial feminism” means, most of this discourse has spun out of the drama surrounding someone who was seen as the emblem of millennial feminism—prominent and prolific writer Lindy West, and her unintentionally unflattering portrayal of her polycule. I wrote about all that here, but for Nicolás Maduro and anyone else equally out of the loop: the reason Lindy West’s drama got blown so far out of proportion was because it wasn’t just about Lindy West. It was about a social movement (ie: millennial feminism, which Katherine Dee aptly called “trainwreck feminism”) that has been receiving backlash for a while now.
How do I describe millennial feminism? It’s frequently mischaracterized as “girlboss feminism” but the girlboss component was never the main point, and the term “girlboss,” even in the 2010s, was more of a SAHM-doing-LulaRoe thing than something actual corporate women ever said about themselves. Lindy West’s brand of millennial feminism—what we’ve come to know as THE millennial feminism—was a lot more about social dynamics and body image, especially as it relates to sexuality and men. A few key beliefs of millennial feminism:
Fuck the male gaze. Fuck YOUR gaze, especially. Do I know who you are? No, but fuck you!
Anything we do to look attractive has to be “for ourselves.” Want to get your pussy hair lasered off? That’s fine, but you have to pretend you’re doing it because of a “sensory processing disorder” that miraculously doesn’t apply to your head hair. Everything is fine, with the addendum that it cannot be for a man.
Men (especially the desire to appeal to men) always have to be a last priority. YOU come first, but only in a very specific way that’s adequately countercultural. Oh, you want to have kids and get married? Either do it alone or find yourself one of the rare good men who has zero preferences or opinions outside of thinking you’re amazing no matter what. But more importantly, why do you want to have kids? The world is literally burning.
Everything non-traditional must be destigmatized. Abortion can’t simply be “safe, legal, and rare,” it needs to be shouted and put on a cake!
Men and women are basically the same, and anything about women’s sexuality that deviates from men is social conditioning. This is why a woman who claims not to enjoy lots of casual sex is just a mindless peon. There is no greater honor than being able to “have sex like a man.” Is this at odds with the “don’t care about men” given that casual sex is actually pretty appealing to men? Don’t think about it too much!
Normalize everything! But also, sex is either degrading or empowering. Getting oral sex is empowering, giving it (to a man) is degrading. Unless you’re giving head in a transgressive kind of way (kink? random post-divorce hookup with a Brazilian lifeguard?) then it’s okay.
Obviously, I’m speaking in hyperbole here, but it’s no surprise that people—including liberal women—would eventually tire of this script. But just as millennial feminism was its own form of backlash to the toxic environment of the 2000s, I fear that the backlash to millennial feminism will be just as insane, if not worse.
