Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Are You a Bad Feminist?

Buzzfeed's quizzes are usually pretty light and silly.

All right, so this one isn't any different.
"You checked off 18 out of 56 on this list!
You are a borderline acceptable feminist – or, as some would say, 'problematic'."
I'm a borderline acceptable feminist, which means I'm perfectly average.

I'm a little surprised that some of the commenters took this to be a serious assessment of feminism. Most of the statements listed are old anti-feminist tropes: one can't be a "proper" feminist and wear makeup, sport hairless legs or armpits, or read Cosmo. (Note: I have no idea what Closer is. I'm assuming it's not the Dennis Cooper book.)

Where, apparently, do I lose my feminist cred? I own more makeup than Le Tigre albums, I like Miley Cyrus (or I did before all that cultural appropriation), and I thought How To Be a Woman was garbage. Though I don't see how that's one for the negative column.

2 comments:

  1. I also got 18 of 56, so I'm "problematic" according to this quiz. But it's satire. Even more, satire with a UK twist, so maybe I'm problematic only in a satirically British context. I learned that Closer is a British gossip site. I'd never heard of it before. It's also heterosexist. My female partner and I have to share those typically female chores or they won't get done -- unless we were to have a cleaner (another box to check).

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  2. I got 24, Borderline or problematic. And I don't like the word "vagina" As I said in a post on the subject of genital terms: "Vagina fits together all wrong and feels nasty and slippery in my mouth, as though I'm trying to hold a glass ball on my tongue. It's the "ina" coming after the j sound. Carolina works, because the N flows out of the L. The J is too hard to have anything flow after it. It needs a hard consonant, a D or T."

    (post is here: http://valarltd.livejournal.com/1871938.html)

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