Femme Fatale
Rob Kardashian is Trash and So Are You
On Wednesday, July 5, Rob Kardashian posted a series of extremely disturbing photos on his personal Instagram page. He posted naked photos of his ex-girlfriend, Blac Chyna, and accused her of cheating on him. It took Instagram 20 minutes to take down the explicit photos. By that time, it was too late. The whole world had seen.
What Instagram Taught Me About Feminism
For a long time, I knew—or I thought I knew—that the two identities were irreconcilable. I was told that my Instagram account was not only apolitical, but actively anti-feminist. I was “contributing to my own objectification,” I was not “helping the cause,” and I was “giving feminism a bad name.” Articles about feminist Instagram users would showcase women who skateboarded and rode motorbikes and wrote code. These were the “women who lift you up,” as opposed to the Instagram models posing in their swimsuits, who “drag you down.”
Scared to Be a Feminist
But being a feminist, even a watered-down feminist, comes with repercussions. Even Emma Watson’s conciliatory HeForShe speech, where she spends most of the time talking about all the ways in which men are oppressed, triggered intense backlash. Users on the online message board 4chan threatened to leak Emma Watson’s nude photographs in retaliation for her speech. Even though Emma Watson explicitly said things like “men don’t have the benefits of equality either,” her speech was considered threatening and offensive enough to provoke men to punish her.
Check Your Privilege
These statements proved to be extremely controversial. Men, especially those who consider themselves feminists, were angry that I called them oppressors. They invoked the “not all men” argument, and brought up all the ways in which they have supported women’s rights. Many men seemed to consider my statements a personal attack, and became defensive. If all men are oppressors, then what were they supposed to do? Was there nothing that men could do right? Was I simply advocating for male genocide?
Beware the Male Feminist
This is the “woke misogynist” that Nona Willis Aronowitz wrote about. This is the self-proclaimed feminist man who proudly attends the Women’s March and reads Judith Butler and casually throws around terms like “gender performativity,” but who also harasses, talks over, belittles, and sexually assaults women.
