Straw Feminist: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Armitage III]]''. The [[Backstory]] is given in snippets, but a key plot element is that feminists have become political powerhouses equivalent to Greens. It is implied by the presence of an Earth "observer" that on Earth, women have gained status equivalent to modern-day South African whites - and few are willing to give that up just because [[Mars Needs Women]]. Space has been colonized, and Mars has been partially [[Terraform|Terraformed]]ed, but has thus been unable to draw enough women to the planet to breed new Martians. Androids known as "[[A Mech by Any Other Name|Seconds]]" were created first as a source of labor, then upgraded to [[Ridiculously Human Robot|Ridiculously Human Robots]]s as a immigration draw; come to Mars and leave the shrews behind for a [[Yamato Nadeshiko|sweet, willing]] [[Mega Corp|conCeption]] [[Sex Bot]]! The long term solution was to {{spoiler|''build'' fertile women - the titular "Thirds"; robots so human that they can be '''impregnated'''. When the Straw Feminists find out about the plan, the threat to their power base pisses them off to no end, resulting in an ultimatum; scrap the baby machines or Mommy will come do it personally, [[The War of Earthly Aggression|along with as much of the landscape as necessary]].}}

* ''[[Kaichou wa Maid-sama]]'' stars Misaki Ayuzawa, the first female [[Student Council President]] of an all-boys-turned-coed school, who initially fits this trope, causing her no end of trouble against the majority male student body. Her backstory -- herbackstory—her father abandoning her, her younger sister, and their sickly mother to a huge debt -- providesdebt—provides some justification, and soon [[Character Development]] forces her to face the fact that the boys' antagonism to her is but a reflection of her own antagonism against them. It soon becomes clear that, regardless, Misaki's dislike of injustice in any form is much stronger than her dislike of men.

* During the 'Til Death chapter of the [[Star Trek]] [[Comic Book Adaptation|manga]] the Enterprise comes across a [[After the End|ruined planet]], finding two sarcophagi on the surface. After beaming them back up the male and female crew begin acting hostile toward each other, at which point the women begin to behave as [[Straw Feminist]] and the men begin to act [[Straw Misogynist|in a similar fashion]]. The sarcophagi open and Spock is able to determine that the planet was [[Apocalypse How|destroyed]] in a [[Gendercide|gender war]], the leaders of which inside the coffins have been [[Mass Hypnosis|psychically influencing]] the crew.

* [[Marvel Comics]] supervillain Superia wants to either eliminate, enslave, or [[Gender Bender|feminize]] all men-- andmen—and doesn't mind sterilizing 90% of Earth's women to make it happen. As Anaconda of the Serpent Society puts it, "What'samatter, you didn't get asked out to the prom or somethin'?"

* Women from [[Marvel Comics|Thundra's future]] fit this trope to a 'T'. After their reality merged with its [[Spear Counterpart]] the result had both sexes living together in peace. Thundra later found another such reality, basically the copy of her original one, lived there for awhile and then came back to present leaving there a daughter Lyra who grew up into another [[Straw Feminist]] but [[All of the Other Reindeer|for a number]] [[My Species Doth Protest Too Much|of reasons]] [[Character Development|changed for better]].

** Played disturbingly straight in the [[New 52]] reboot by the other Amazons. Every few decades they go out to sea to find ships crewed by men. They couple with the men, then ''kill'' them. Female children conceived this way become the next generation of Amazons, while the male children are given to Hephaestus to act as his labor force in exchange for his weapons. Diana is appropriately horrified by this revelation and immediately tries to liberate the males -- shemales—she only stops when she sees that Hephaestus truly loves them as his surrogate sons and they in turn love him as their surrogate father.

* Akasha in ''[[The Vampire Chronicles|Queen of the Damned]]'' by [[Anne Rice]]. Though she does not use politically correct terms, since she's supposed to be an [[Ancientancient Egypt|ancient Egyptian]]ian, she believes all violence on Earth is caused by men. Her plan is to use her near-omnipotent powers as mother of all [[Our Vampires Are Different|vampires]] to [[Gendercide|destroy almost all the world's males]] and create a utopia run by women, with herself as benevolent queen and goddess. In the end {{spoiler|she is destroyed by female twin vampires Mekare and Maharet, for personal reasons as much as to stop her plot.}} She may or may not really be a straw feminist since it's unclear whether or not the author agrees with her (persistent [[Author Avatar]] Lestat seems very ambivalent).

* The title character in Tess Gerrittsen's "Rizzoli" series shows traits of this. She dislikes beautiful women (partly because she isn't) and is all too eager to assign a negative characteristic to them, and she often expresses disgust and contempt for the men who have fallen in love with them, dismissing them all as shallow and foolish. She also has a chip on her shoulder about being the only female detective in the homicide department and is quick to interpret all criticism--andcriticism—and praise, for that matter--asmatter—as sexist. And in a scene where she visits a bar, she views nearly every man there as a potential rapist and every woman as an idiot willing to put herself in danger.

* [[Wife-Basher Basher|Niklas]] from Jens Lapidus' ''Aldrig Fucka Up'' (translated "never fuck up") is a rare male [[Straw Feminist]]. He beats up his neighbours boyfriend for hitting her, stalks several men whose names he stole form a women's shelter, shooting one, and torturing another to death, and at the finale, blows up a [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] who organizes orgies for the upper class. And this is only one of the [[Third Line, Some Waiting]].

** If she's not written well, C.J Cregg in can sometimes border on this trope; fortunately, most of the time, she's written very well. Of note, however, is the episode 'The Women Of Qumar', in which C.J reacts very poorly the news of a US arms deal made to a [[Qurac]]-style country which has a poor record on women's rights; whilst the point the episode was making as a valid one, it unfortunately chose to make it by having C.J act in a very unprofessional, out-of-character and borderline [[Straw Feminist]] fashion.

** The episode 'Night Five' features an intern with [[Straw Feminist]] tendencies who takes umbrage at a joke Sam makes towards Ainsley Hayes which sends him into a defensive frenzy all episode, and who eventually gets torn a new one by Ainsley herself by the end. Considering this was written not long after Sorkin's public spat with the moderators and commentators on the [[Television Without Pity]] boards, in which the possibility of sexism in his writing had been the topic of intense discussion, many have taken the existence of this character as a device to be torn down solely to show that his writing was not sexist. It doesn't help that, in the context of the episode, [[Straw Man Has a Point|the woman kind of had a point]].

* ''[[Lost in Space]]'' had an episode with this. The [[Straw Feminist]] villainess (who always got her [[Faceless Goons]] to do everything for her) agreed to take Dr. Smith as her consort (after checking his teeth!), and spent most of the episode forcing the males to be her slaves and the females to accept her cultish female supremacy. The result was not so much offensive as unintentionally hilarious.

* On ''[[ER]]'', Dr. Anna DelAmico acted hell-bent on interpreting EVERY SINGLE THING a male co-worker said or did as sexist and patronizing and/or a come-on. When he called her by her first name rather than "Dr.", she ranted and raved at him for several minutes and all but accused him of hitting on her and/or trying to undermine her in front of her patients, and continued to do this even after he apologized and assured her that he meant nothing improper and often called the male doctors by their first name too. Later, when he offered her help with patients or advice on how to deal with them, she blasted him for being condescending. At no time did it ever occur to her that she was overreacting. What's worse, upon complaining to a coworker, the other woman also played this trope straight, automatically assuming that the man was in the wrong and that his supposed sexist treatment was because he had been unable to get her into bed--withoutbed—without ''ever'' hearing the man's side of the story.

* [[Granola Girl]] Topanga Lawrence from the first season of ''[[Boy Meets World]]''. In an episode where the class is supposed to dress up as themselves as adults with future careers, Topanga shows up as the President of the United States, which isn't a prestigious job since women eliminated war by moving all men underground to use only for breeding. Fortunately, [[Retcon|retconningretcon]]ning gets rid of the misandry in later seasons.

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'': Anya(nka) and Willow's mom. Anya is a misandrist who dedicated over a thousand years to punishing men. She eventually starts realizing some men are good after falling in love with Xander. It takes her a long time to start feeling guilty, though. Willow's mom is a shrink built on theory who doesn't pay any attention to her kid, and once ranted about the patriarchal content of [[Mister Rogers' Neighborhood|the Mr. Rogers show]]. Because creator [[Joss Whedon]] is a feminist himself, these straw feminists are in a different context than others.<br /><br />The initial introduction of 'vengeance demons' implied that they were all, like Anya, devoted exclusively to punishing men for wronging women. Later episodes introduced more diversity while establishing that this approach was largely born from Anya's own personal issues.

* An episode of [[The Cosby Show]] played this out. Theo offers to plan a bachelor party for Denise's husband Martin. When he offers to get Martin a stripper, Martin tells him "no". Well, this apparently isn't good enough for Denise, who, egged on by her sister Sondra, starts screaming at Martin for not being offended and disgusted at the idea of having a stripper. The scenario degenerates into a "battle of the sexes", with the women basically denouncing everything the men say or do as sexist and patronizing, while the men actually make several valid points about the women overreacting, and their blatant [[Double Standard]]--Sondra—Sondra outright dismisses male stripping as "different", while continuing to denounce female stripping as degrading and refuses to explain exactly WHY there's a difference. Keep in mind that this all happened ''after'' Martin said "No" to having a stripper, meaning there was no reason for the argument to start in the first place.

* ''Nightstand'', the 1990s parody of daytime talk shows, had the recurring [[Straw Feminist]] guest Dr. [[Just for Pun|Sans-Peen]]. A [[Does Not Like Men|man-hating lesbian]], the one time she agreed with her male chauvinist counterpart was wanting to see a nubile female guest jump up and down some more.

* Often parodied on ''[[Community]]'' with Britta Perry, who has a tendency to deliver [[Straw Feminist]] pronouncements along with her general [[Granola Girl]] attitude. It usually involves her getting outraged at the flip of a coin, exposed as a bit of [[Hypocrite]] and generally ends up with her making herself look foolish.

* The original Amazons from [[Classical Mythology]] may be the [[Ur Example|Ur Examples]]s. They were a tribe of all-female warriors who, [[Depending on the Writer]], either [[Gendercide|killed their sons]], enslaved them, or killed some and enslaved the others. The Amazons managed to keep their tribe going by having sex with neighboring men (in versions where they killed all the boys), or their male slaves (in versions where they enslaved them). They were likely created to justify the Greeks' [[Stay in the Kitchen]] philosophy--"Well, we're only oppressing our women because if we don't, they'll rise up and oppress us even worse!"

** Fun fact: since the original Amazons were a [[Values Dissonance|horror story about women who would forsake femininity]], they did a lot of things to drive this fact home which were lost in later, [[Fan Service]]-laden adaptations, such as cutting off one of their breasts (so they could shoot bows without the string whacking against it). Think about ''that'' the next time you read about some literal [[Hot Amazon|Hot Amazons]]s.

* [[Royal Canadian Air Farce]] did a bit called "Man Bash", a mock [[Game Show]] featuring a [[Straw Feminist]] host who made the male contestant's life hell, while overly praising and helping the female contestant.

* A more concrete example comes with the [[New World of Darkness]] ''[[Vampire: The Requiem]]''. The Circle of the Crone is a covenant that is rather feminist in its leanings, but not to the point of straw--exceptstraw—except for one faction within the covenant, the Daughters of the Goddess, who use for public example of their valuing men and not being misandrist a ritual where they sacrifice a male vampire, ritualistically called the Oak King. This is the only ritual where male vampires are allowed any sort of prominence, and they may only be the Oak King. Needless to say, the other covenants, and indeed most other factions within the Circle, ain't buyin' it.

* The third-party [[Dungeons and Dragons|D&D 3e book]] ''The Slayer's Guide to Amazons''. Quite-literal [[Hot Amazon|Hot Amazons]]s who view men as only good for [[Lady Land|siring daughters]] {{spoiler|(and for [[Black Widow|sacrificing to their goddess after the fact]])}}, [[Offing the Offspring|bash in the skulls of any unlucky sons]], have estrus cycles like [[Incredibly Lame Pun|bitches]], and are classified as [[Neutral Evil]] [[Evil Is Sexy]]? Not even the fact that they're portrayed [[Straw Man Has a Point|relatively]] [[Villain Protagonist|sympathetically]] [[Even Evil Has Standards|compared]] to a [[Straw Misogynist]] [[Aristocrats Are Evil|nobleman]] really redeems this culture from [[Unfortunate Implications|coming off rather]] like a [[Matriarchy|sexist matriarchy]]. And their canonically [[Stripperiffic]] outfits, and the phrase "hell hath no fury" on the back cover, ''really'' don't help.

* One interviewee on the talk radio channel in ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]: Vice City'' was one of these, contrasting with hip, somewhat stupid '80s girl Amy. The key comedy aspect in that interviewee was that she'd just spent a year "undercover" as a man and written a book on her findings. Moreover, the interviewee mentions learning various things about men over the process of being disguised as one, including how men find sports interesting, like looking at pictures of naked women, ear hats and smoke cigarettes. She's a pretentious [[Straw Feminist]] to boot, lambasting "half-hearted bra burners" in her interview. In a strange turn of events, [[wikipedia:Self-Made Man|this later happened]] in real life.

* [[The Nostalgia Chick]] plays it for laughs in [[Kickassia]] when she became [[Sarah Palin|Nostalgia Palin]]. She blames the fact that everyone thinks she's a complete idiot now on the prejudice women face in politics. <ref> Of course, this wasn't so much as mocking feminism than it was slamming [[Sarah Palin]].</ref> Plot-wise, it also had to do with the fact that she was ''trying'' to establish herself as {{spoiler|a [[Magnificent Bastard|Magnificent]] [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing]], but [[Jesus Was Way Cool|Santa Christ]] proved to be the [[Spanner in the Works]] for that one.}}

** In an episode where Peter is forced into sensitivity training... He was so trained that he himself did a feminism equivalent of the [[Heel Face Turn]] and became an extremely fluffy combination of this and a cookie baking, bridge playing young biddy that blames all the ills on men. He ends up falling in with one-shot [[Straw Feminist]] character Gloria Ironbox, who implies that Lois' choice to be a wife and stay-at-home mother is the reason Peter doesn't respect women and that her children are screwed. And what does Lois do? [[Shut UP, Hannibal|After shutting down her arguments,]] [[Mama Bear|she beats the shit out of her.]] The [[Cat Fight]] [[Girl-On-Girl Is Hot|manages to]] [[Snap Back|return Peter to normal.]]