That Cheezburger is Sexist (Gaslighting and Memes)

Evening everyone.

Looks like my feminist brow is knit in a furrow once again.  This time, oddly enough, it's not Disney!  This time I want to talk about gaslighting.  What is gaslighting?  When used specifically in relation to women it is a form of emotional abuse where people (often men) convince women that their very legitimate and real emotions are so far off that said women think they're crazy.  An  excellent article on the subject hit the Internet a few years back and I swear, the moment it did every single woman/girl/girl-identifier heaved a sigh of relief or at the very least did a double take, credulous that maybe they're not crazy after all.  

I know.  I'm one of those girls.  If nothing else, I feel like I've been gaslighted most of my life.  I actually spoke about it in an article for Geeked Magazine on yaoi.  You have to buy a copy to read the full article and you can get your hands on a PDF here.  In the article I discussed how I was subjected to a mild form of gaslighting: my dad won't talk to me or take me seriously if I was crying or flustered or angry; my one guy friend has always called me "dramatic", "too sensitive", or simply "loony" for one reason or another; when my woman's college went co-ed we were urged to be "rational" and "collected" otherwise our adversaries (our own school board who we entrusted to protect the institution and who ultimately betrayed us) wouldn't listen.  Heck, when I was 20 and studying abroad for the first time, I confessed to an old guy friend that I cried when I left my hometown because I wouldn't see it again for a full year.  I kid you not, he called me the "Führer of Drama" and told me to get over it - because expressing anxiety and sadness over leaving the comfort of your home and living in a foreign country for more than a month is totally like setting up a destructive dictatorship that wipes out six million people and invades Poland.  The real kicker to this story is I'm pretty sure he was just trying to cover the fact that he was going to miss me and that he'd feel the same way were he in my shoes.
I won't say that all of this stacked up to leave me emotionally battered or bruised or crippled in the same sense as a mistreated wife or girlfriend, but I'm aware of the effects.  Too often I ask myself: am I wrong?  Am I nuts for feeling this way?  Are my ideas legitimate?  Are my feelings legitimate?  I think I've started gaslighting myself, to be honest, because even now I feel like an insane, lunatic moron for claiming that I've dealt with gaslighting at all.  I don't have any real emotional damage, I'm fine, I'm being too sensitive, I'm not being rational enough, he was just kidding, I can't take a joke...

So given all that, you can understand the rumbles in my stomach when this appeared in my Facebook news feed:

I give you the Illogical Girlfriend meme.  I couldn't believe it then and I can't believe it now.  Do girls like this exist?  I mean, honestly?  Because most of the ladies I know are clever, thoughtful, sweet, silly, amazing human beings.  We have our tougher moments ("So...is there something about her you like that I lack?" "You know, you talking to your ex every night makes me uncomfortable.") but this meme seems to imply that only women have these moments.  Why isn't there an Illogical Boyfriend meme?
(No, seriously can someone PLEASE make me an Illogical Boyfriend meme?! It could have awesome captions like, "Spends every weekend with his bros - wonders why you're upset" or "Catcalls every girl on the street - wonders why you're jealous".  Okay, so clearly I'm no good at these, but you get my idea.)  What really got to me was when the guy who posted this image said, "This is why I'm glad I don't have a girlfriend" as if one absurd meme represented the entire female gender.  But I know this guy and I know this is exactly how he thinks.  The Illogical Girlfriend meme is how he sees women (I should know, I dated him).

I know this isn't really an "official" meme (and by "official" I mean I can't find it on Know Your Meme) but that doesn't mean this sort of gaslighting doesn't exist in Internet culture.  Overly Attached Girlfriend, Scene Wolf, College Liberal (aka Female College Liberal or Bad Argument Hippie), Liberal Douche Garofalo (College Liberal's forerunner), Idiot Nerd Girl, Annoying Facebook Girl, and Musically Oblivious 8th Grader are all very popular memes that generally depict young women as being irrational or outright stupid and thus invalid.  I tried looking for Irrational Boyfriend memes, actually, and came up with the Hopeless Boyfriend Meme (a meme where a girlfriend talks smack about her boyfriend every time he tries to do something nice) and Obsessive Boyfriend (there is a spin off of Overly Attached Girlfriend called Overly Attached Boyfriend, but it's not nearly as popular and isn't a confirmed meme).  I don't know about you, but I find it rather telling (and a little frustrating) that both memes are dead/inactive.

(Girls do this?  I've heard of it happening, but really??)

Silly feminist, you're just overreacting and you can't take a joke.  Idiot Nerd Girl has been redeemed and Overly Attached Girlfriend has evolved into Misunderstood Girlfriend.  Yeah, but doesn't it bug you that they exist in the first place and their male counterparts aren't very popular, if they exist at all?  It seems to me that guys got the better end of the meme stick with Good Guy Greg, Success Kid, and Ridiculously Photogenic Guy.  There are dozens more, but I think my point is pretty clear when the guys have "altruistic", "successful", and "so insanely good-looking the world stops turning on its axis" in their meme arsenal and girls get "stupid", "irrational", and "insane".
I mean, yes, there are memes where guys are portrayed as complete morons (Scumbag Steve for starters) but this doesn't seem to reflect poorly on their gender.  I don't see girls crying "This is why I don't date men!" on their Facebook pages over said memes.

It...it doesn't sit right with me.  As human beings men and women are capable of their petty, insane, ridiculous, illogical, stupid, dramatic moments.  Men don't have a rational cortex in their brains that automatically overrides their emotions and allows them to pass up those moments, thus making them more fit to function in society (sometimes they're more dramatic and irrational than the ladies I know!).  I wish they'd stop acting like it.

Right, night my loves.

Glitter and Dresses and Feminism(s) - OH MY.

So.  That happened.

On May 11th, 2013 Disney had the distinct pleasure of inducting Brave's Merida into the Disney Princess Franchise.  Whew.  At last - a feminist princess has been welcomed into the ranks.  Feminism's efforts on the cultural front can only succeed now that Disney: The Great and Powerful has finally accepted girls can shoot arrows and maybe they don't want to get married after all.  Merida has been canonized into the official line and will now enjoy that special sort of immortality that Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora/Briar Rose, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan, Tiana, and Rapunzel know so well.  Her face will be plastered over every consumer product imaginable, from bedding to flip-flops, and little girls everywhere will be able to purchase their very own Merida costume so they can play dress-up and shoot arrows from atop their sofas.

Except...we've been here before (sing along kids!).  Disney has produced strong heroines (royal and non-royal) in the past.  Besides Mulan and Pocahontas, two characters who bucked their societies' gender roles to do great things, and Tiana (who just wanted to open a restaurant, dammit; Naveen was a side quest she didn't even know she was on), Disney has given us sarcastic yet tender Meg (Hercules), sharp Kida (Atlantis), brave Nala (The Lion King), adventurous Jane (Tarzan), glitchy Vanellope and brazen Tamora (Wreck-It-Ralph), clever Esmerelda (Hunchback of Notre Dame), hell, I'd even argue for Giselle and Nancy Tremaine from Enchanted since Giselle doesn't blindly marry the prince and Nancy is a business woman with a soft side.  Yet all of these lovely ladies have been cast aside by Disney's marketing teams.  Unlike the official 11, their products won't get as much shelf space and eventually they'll start to show their age.  They're mortal.

For Tiana, Mulan, and Pocahontas, things aren't much better.  Sure, they'll be remembered and young kids will continue to watch their movies.  Kids will have examples of women entrepreneurs, political leaders, and warriors that they can emulate.  Yet there is a price: homogenization.
I'm sure you guys have seen the redesigns that Disney released back in January.  In case you haven't here are the princesses you know and love:

And here is what they look like now: 

Drenched in glitter, all wearing poofy ball-gowns, most with crazy Victoria's Secret sexy hair.  Mulan has already been through several redesigns, and while her current image is closer to her true form in the movie, there's still no suggestion of her warrior woman self.  Pocahontas also got the "royal" treatment. Is it me, or does her skin look a little bit...er...paler?  A brief skim over the princesses' product pages at the Disney store (Tiana, Mulan, and Pocahontas) show they've all been reduced to that princess glamor Disney is notorious for.  Hell, Pocahontas hardly has ANY products, just a few dolls with an extra-shiny belt and a super-shiny jewelry set.  Not even official princess-hood can save her from the dusty back shelf.  

So when Merida's redesign was released, naturally there was an outcry.  She was too sexy, too slinky, too mature for the 8-12 age set she was meant for.  Just as Merida's character resists every feminine gender role that Disney has set out, so her supporters resisted Disney's attempt to shove her into the same glitter-soaked box as the other ten.  And in the outcry, there was another voice, the "What are you guys talking about??" voice.  On CNN.com Peggy Drexler wrote 

"The fact is that "babes" can be worthwhile role models, too, and no less so than those women whose looks are more rough and tumble. What's sexist, polarizing -- and most damaging -- is the suggestion that women can be only one or the other: pretty or powerful. Vulnerable or strong. Pink wearing or substantive. These are incorrect messages that serve to confuse and contain. Instead, the message should be about how these days, women can be many things. Girls -- and boys -- are listening." 

You can read the full article here.  Basically she's saying there's nothing wrong with the redesign, it's us "feminists" getting our knickers in a bunch that is detrimental.  And she wasn't the only one, a post appeared in my Facebook feed essentially arguing that just because Merida is more feminine and sparkly doesn't mean she's any less brave.  Make-up and glamor doesn't change her intrinsic characteristics and the feminists who believe that need to chill the f*ck out!  But they're missing the point!  The fight wasn't against Merida's newfound (or newly expressed) femininity - if that was the case feminists everywhere would be angry she was wearing a dress in the first place.  The fight was against Merida's homogenization, against her going the same route of erasure as the other "strong" princesses.

So finally I get to the crux of my argument, my real reason for perking my head up from behind my Netflix stream and getting on my soapbox.  I'm getting REALLY REALLY tired of people thinking feminists are a bunch of misandrist, femininity-bashing assholes who are out to conquer the world and enslave the male sex.  Seriously?!  Feminism isn't about women being better than men or trying to become women in men's clothing.  Feminism is about WOMEN NOT BEING SECOND-BEST.  THAT'S IT.  FINITO.  WHY IS THIS HARD?!

Feminism is all about embracing differences, about empowering women to be ANYTHING they want to be without judgement or harassment from men or other women.  To swing it back to the Disney Princess franchise: if I had my way Disney would redesign the redesigns one more time.  Merida would wear her green dress with her bow and arrow slung across her back, Mulan would wear the dress she saved the Emperor in (a hybrid of her Ping armor and her match-maker hanfu, a symbol of the synthesis of her feminine strength), Pocahontas would remain the same, Tiana might have a sparkly apron and her yellow dress (or whatever dress she wore when her restaurant finally opened), and the rest of them would keep whatever dress or outfit they wore through the majority of their movies.  Cinderella, Belle, Briar Rose/Aurora, Rapunzel, Snow White, Ariel, and Jasmine could keep their normal stuff sans glitter.  Or even a little glitter.  Goddess knows I sometimes wander into the Disney Store with a stupid grin on my face just to look at all of the glitter and the glamor.  "The sparkly!" I drool.  "THE SPARKLY!!!"

I'm making a direct appeal to my friends here, to those who have said to me, "I'm all for [aspect of women's rights/feminism that I asked them about] but I don't agree with the way feminists handle themselves/talk about these issues." Guys, do you realize that when you say you can't claim the "feminist" label because it's too rabid or radical you're participating in a kind of erasure?  Women, especially feminists, are gas-lighted, called hysterical, slut-shamed, have to deal with a rape culture, and have to fight too hard and too often for autonomy over their reproductive organs, and if we speak out against it we have guys calling us femi-nazis (because equal rights is totally like invading Poland) and sluts.  They try to shame us into silence and sometimes it works.  It works when rational women and men refuse to call themselves feminist for fear of being seen as rabid man-haters.

I'm kind of a mute and I don't often try to raise a battle cry, but I'm making an attempt, just this once.  I'm asking you: call yourself a feminist.  The movement needs you, it needs your face, it needs your voice.  If you continue to say "I'm not a feminist" then your siblings, your parents, your best friends, your peers, might continue to capitulate to their fear that feminists are simply misandrists and they won't speak out against the gross inequalities many of you already recognize.  The idea that straw feminists actually represent real feminists will continue to persist.  I don't want that to happen.  It doesn't have to happen.

Okay, that's it.  Night, loves.