Since the 1960s, women and feminism have been associated so closely that you could automatically assume that every woman considers herself one.
Given, everyone had a different definition for it, so — moot point.
The thing about feminism is that the original movement in the 1920s wanted to address a legitimate concern - that women did not have the same equal rights as men. So we fixed that… but that wasn’t enough.
Fast-forward to the 1960s, and the second wave of feminism hit with all the subtlety of a flaming MAC truck into a fireworks stand… driven by a T-Rex. Now, the issue was that they felt they didn’t have social equality. They didn’t want to be chained to the homes and be slaves to men, just like their mothers.
They wanted to be miserable working stiffs, just like the males of the species.
So we fixed that, and women have been pissed off ever since.
But that wasn’t enough. Fast-forward to the year 2000-ish, and a third wave of feminism popped up.
What did they want this time?
No one's really sure because what modern feminism wants changes by the day. Since women have all the same rights as men and have the same social opportunities men do, there's not really anything a feminist movement has left to fight for in the Western world without it becoming a supremacy movement.
Today, modern feminism’s main “right” they fight for is abortion, but… that was never a right, and after the collapse of Roe v. Wade, abortion became a state-level issue, which is exactly how most things are and should be.
So what’s the deal with the third (or fourth?) wave, and why is it so… annoying?
Modern feminism seems hollow, shallow, and kind of silly. So much so that women increasingly want nothing to do with it.
Why?
When I say the word feminist, you automatically picture a woman, usually angry, possibly neon-haired, with piercings, and a very angry expression. You do this because modern feminism has trained you to see this through constant examples. They're very loud, very angry, and very hostile people who tend to force you to deal with them or their actions.
Let me divest you of this habit, because modern feminism is not a group of women fighting a noble cause. They aren't even the shrieking tantrum-throwers you see in X videos.
Modern feminism is a corporation.
It's Gillette, Dove soap, H&M, Calvin Klein, and Audi.
Corporations are the real face of modern feminism, and for the last decade or so, modern feminism has dominated the corporate space, and the results have been… just swell.
It’s not even just the corporate space. Hollywood was absolutely filthy with modern feminism to the point where stories became predictable.
Woman oppressed --> White man either evil, weak, or both --> Woman actually better than everyone else, especially the men around her --> Woman finally realizes she doesn’t have to be oppressed --> Woman stops holding back --> Woman wins the day --> Roll credits.
Now, the feeling — and I want to emphasize the word feeling here — that these corporations are pushing is supposed to be “empowerment," but that’s just the packaging. If you pay attention to the messages they’re actually laying down, you’ll realize that it’s not belief in the self, or the power of women at all. What they’re actually selling is victimhood.
Women aren’t being empowered. They’re being used through insecurity and anger in order to form bonds with corporations who pretend to "understand" and "empathize" with them. It's monetized identity politics.
Victimhood is very easy to sell, and you’ll never run out of it because creating it is just a matter of making someone feel it, and what’s great about victimhood is that if you can get a bunch of people to feel the same brand of victimhood all at once, you can effectively create a very loyal — oftentimes rabid — tribe.
Understand that tribalism is a corporation’s dream. There are entire books revolving around how important it is for corporations to form tribal bonds with their customers. It keeps people coming back to the business. It makes them hyper-loyal and willing to shell out more bucks because they don’t just like the product, they feel like they’re a part of the brand.
Even when the product is bad, they’ll do whatever it takes to defend it. You’ve met these people before. BMW drivers, Apple users, Harley-Davidson riders, Dallas Cowboys fans, and of course… the modern feminist.
The thing about feminism and tribalism is that they can create a potent mix of blind loyalty.
For one, being a victim gives you a sort of moral currency that makes you correct by default. If anyone pushes back against you, you can spend said currency by labeling the ops as bigoted or hateful in some capacity, or in the case of modern feminists, "sexism" and "misogyny."
It also allows you to buckle down on your victimhood by highlighting the pushback as the reason messages like yours are substantial and important. Thus, encouraging people who suffer from said "victimhood" to push it harder and louder.
Now, mix that with tribalism - something that encourages groupthink and rejects facts or nuance — and you've got a hyper-loyal group of people ready to go to war for the cause.
If you're a corporation, and you want to create a loyal customer base, then creating a tribe out of angry women who think they're victims is a profitable plan. Just make some commercials, create a few campaigns, and make a show of donating money to causes all around uplifting women and fighting against sexism, and soon you'll have purses flying open, and you'll be showered in dollar bills.
Don't be fooled, of course. Corporations don't actually care about the causes they virtue signal about. Don’t believe me? Ever seen a corporation during and after Pride Month? You think Apple, a company that has its factories in the high-pollution country of China, actually cares about the environment?
Given, corporations cashed in on this for a while, but I think the luster is starting to wear off. The American Eagle and Dunkin' Donuts ads aren't just fun and refreshing, they're a hawked loogie in the face of the rules established by modern feminism when it comes to corporate artistic creation. The idea that a beautiful woman could be doing anything that would remotely invite the male gaze is a sin in their eyes, and American Eagle did exactly that with their Sydney Sweeney ad.
But the fact that we're moving that way proves that modern feminism wasn't really a movement; it was a trend that corporations jumped on, and it is now dying out. Society is moving on.
I think it won't be like before we're calling a time-of-death on third wave feminism... or is it fourth wave?
I don't care.
(NOTE: This piece was edited post-publication for clarity.)
