Straw Feminist: Difference between revisions

<!-- %% -->

 

 

{{examples}}

== Comic Books ==

* Taken to a [[Refuge in Audacity|ridiculous extreme]] in [[Frank Miller]]'s ''[[All Star Batman and Robin The Boy Wonder|All-Star]] [[Batman]] [[All Star Batman and Robin The Boy Wonder|& Robin]]'', in one issue of which Wonder Woman violently shoves a man out of her way while growling, " Out of my way, sperm bank!"

* Goldilocks from ''[[Fables]]'' seems to be this, but she's really cynically using her rhetoric as a tool to manipulate the people around her.

* Both used and subverted in ''[[Y the Last Man]]'', which contains both the insane, violent Amazons as well as other, rational feminists (both peaceful and not).

== Literature ==

* The character of Miss Western in the novel ''Tom Jones'' is a proto-feminist who believes women are men's equals. At first this seems to the modern reader to be a remarkably progressive expression on the part of the author, but reading further, it becomes clear that a contemporary reader would have found the idea to be very humorous and inherently ridiculous from the outset. As the novel progresses, it becomes clear that Miss Western is tyrannical and only feels this way because she doesn't have a man of her own.

* ''Edge of Apocalypse'' has the vice president.

* 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 [[Ancient Egypt|ancient Egyptian]], 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).

* Subverted in J. Courtney Sullivan's ''Commencement'' with a ''sympathetic'' portrayal of a radical feminist: April, one of the main characters, is a self-described MacKinnonite who sees organizations like NOW as "not doing enough." However, she's shown to be more of a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]], a good person who perhaps is a bit too idealistic {{spoiler|which she's abandoned by the end of the novel after she learns the hard way that some people like to take advantage of wide-eyed young guns}}. (Even the de rigeur anti-male attitude [[Freudian Excuse|is explained]] in April's case: her father [[Disappeared Dad|abandoned April and her mom]], and when April was 13 {{spoiler|a middle-aged family friend [[Break the Cutie|raped]] and [[Crosses the Line Twice|impregnated]] her}}.) The other three main characters, April's friends, each represent more moderate variations on feminism (one even works for NOW). April's [[Complete Monster]] of a boss, Ronnie Munro, could be seen as a straight-playing of the trope, if the novel didn't go out of its way acknowledge that her brand of "feminism" is far from the most prevalent or consistent one.

* In [[Half Moon Investigations]], the third most crucial group to the plot is a group of pre-pubescent aged elementary schoolgoing midgets who worship some important woman and try to get as many boys as they can expelled from their school. They also are violent and not afraid to do illegal things, like locking the main characters up.

* ''[[Percy Jackson and The Olympians]]'' gives us Circe, who believes that all men are pigs, and...considering [[Baleful Polymorph|her powers]], and [[The Odyssey (Literature)|the work in which she originally appeared]], you can pretty much see where she's going with that (though for the sake of convenience, she currently uses guinea pigs). She believes that women are so oppressed that they can only achieve power through magic (a belief later expressed by her niece Medea in the sequel series ''[[The Heroes of Olympus]]''). She's so bad that even [[Soapbox Sadie|Annabeth]] thinks she's a misandrist bitch.

** The Hunters of Artemis are actually ''heroic'' versions of this. They still [[Does Not Like Men|don't like men]], and have sworn off any romantic relationships with them, but unlike Circe, they don't ''harm'' guys unless provoked. (Which isn't very reassuring, considering that Greek deities like Artemis are infamous for [[Disproportionate Retribution]] and often consider small, harmless, and usually unintentional actions to be legitimate "provocation." Artemis claims to have turned guys into jackalopes and other animals just for ''stumbling upon their camp.'') Zoe Nightshade, the lieutenant of the Hunters, hates guys at first, but Percy's actions gradually cause her to respect them.

** Later after being Flanderised she is shown to be a constant [[Hypocrite]] of her own beliefs. Such as bad mouthing porn as a Male fantasy, only for the clerk to come up to her and tell her the videos she requested earlier had come in.

** The worst case came during the season she was apparently pregnant, Al had turned his garage into a rec room for himself, only for Marcy and other pregnant women to take it over under the name W.O.M.B (Women Owe Men Bupkiss) by this point implying that simply being a women gave her the right to do whatever she wanted without any regard to men.

* ''[[Herman's Head]]'' had [[Handsome Lech]] Jay getting gut-punched by a butch member of [[Fun With Acronyms|WAMP]] (Women Against Male Persons), a feminist organization so radical they neuter gingerbread men.

* ''[[The West Wing]]'':

** Babs Duffy, the militant lesbian leader in the ''[[Law and Order SVU|Law & Order: SVU]]'' episode "P.C." ''And how.'' There was ''nothing'' that character couldn't turn into an anti-gay, misogynist expression of patriarchal blah blah blah.

*** And it even turns out {{spoiler|she likes MEN!}}

* Inverted once in [[Sliders]] episode named "''The Weaker Sex''" where women rule the world. Initially it was described as positive - there were no wars, there were no class differences except; Men were considered the inferior sex, suffering the same injustices faced by women today like sexual harassment in their jobs (if they have any time from housecare), and not suitable for anything remarkable such as becoming a leading political or religious figure (even the Pope was female). Arturo becomes a somewhat unwilling figurehead for a men's rights movement in an election for becoming a Mayor.

* 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 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.

** In "Battle of the Hexes," [[The Scrappy|Billie]] all of a sudden cops this attitude. When she inadvertently puts on the Girdle of Hippolyta, this attitude gets turned [[Up to Eleven]].

* 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.

* Samantha Carter had some shades of this during the [[Early Installment Weirdness|first couple of episodes]] of ''[[Stargate SG 1]]'', the crowning moment of which came during the pilot (her infamous "reproductive organs" speech). [[Word of God|Amanda Tapping]] actually complained to the writers that "women don't talk like that". The speech was later cut from the pilot's re-release as a DVD movie, and Carter proceeded to spend the rest of the show kicking ass and taking names without making a fuss over her gender.

* Jessie Spano in ''[[Saved By the Bell]]''

 

== Video Games ==

* In ''[[Baldurs Gate]]'':

** {{spoiler|Edwin}} briefly becomes one of these thanks to some [[Applied Phlebotinum]] that he [[Be Careful What You Wish For|covets]].

== Web Comics ==

* Susan in ''[[El Goonish Shive (Webcomic)|El Goonish Shive]]'' is introduced as a [[Does Not Like Men|misandrist]] female supremacist. A cringeworthy portrayal by itself, but luckily she gets some [[Character Development]] later on {{spoiler|starting with the uncomfortable realization that her general prejudice against men may be serving as a backhanded excuse for her father's infidelity (as in "all men are creeps so Daddy couldn't help it"), as well as a transference of her mother's own issues against men resulting from this onto her.}}

* No stranger to Strawfolk, ''[[Nip and Tuck]]'' has Hortense, perpetually angry lizard womyn (although she seems to exist less to potshot Feminism, as to piss off the local [[Jerk Jock|Troglajocks]] so Tuck can swoop in play the badass, and to give Tuck's girlfriend Thelma someone to look good next to).

{{quote| '''Tuck:''' '''What?''' Feminism has '''double standards'''? Y'don't say... [http://www.rhjunior.com/NT/00766.html\]}}

** It's apparently got something to do with a previous husband; she often goes on rants about wasting "twenty-two thankless years" with him, and at times will literally start screaming at other men as if they were actually him. She eventually [[Defrosting Ice Queen|mellows out]] a bit...[[Pitbull Dates Puppy|at least with]] [[Hippie Teacher|Mr. O'Neill]].

** Ms. Barch is actually less extreme than a ''lot'' of fictional examples on here, and the show took care to contrast her attitudes with other forms of feminism. This was a show watched by high school students: [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped]].

* ''[[The Powerpuff Girls (Animation)|The Powerpuff Girls]]'' had [[Femme Fatale]], a man-hating criminal who only stole Susan B. Anthony coins and convinced the girls to not help men and not arrest her because she was a woman. Her flawed logic was countered by the more mainstream equality-based feminism of Sara Bellum and Miss Keane who convinced them otherwise. Not helping Femme Fatale was the fact that women were also hurt by her actions and that she didn't even know who Susan B. Anthony was (though it did lead to a very good [[Shut UP, Hannibal]] and subsequent beatdown by the girls).

* ''[[Yin Yang Yo (Animation)|Yin Yang Yo]]'' has Saranoia, who is an unstable misandrist sorceress and wants to exterminate Yang but likes Yin. Her hatred seems to be based on her feelings towards her own brother, Mark, she indicates she was [[The Unfavourite]] growing up. She has a tendency to call Yang Mark.

** Also, IIRC ''[[Super Friends]]'' had a one-time villainess who [[Hypnotize the Princess|brainwashes all the women in the world]] (including [[Wonder Woman]] and Jaina of the Wonder Twins) to turn against males.

* ''[[Family Guy (Animation)|Family Guy]]'':

** Peter once accuses Lois of being a feminist, however he considers that a sexy part of her.

* ''[[The Simpsons (Animation)|The Simpsons]]'':

[[Category:Double Standard]]

[[Category:The War On Straw]]