A4 Reflection: Sh*t Feminists Don't Say

For our A4, Adam, Michael, Shefali, Kate, and I made a video called Sh*t Feminists Don't Say. Hope you guys like it! :)

Just to provide some background information, the production of the video went something like this: (1) Each of us comes up with several potential quotes and everyone contributes to a Facebook group chat; (2) We collect our favorites, place them in a Google doc, and start assigning quotes to people (most of the time, we had each person perform the quotes they came up with); (3) Kate films Michael, Adam, Shefali, and I acting like non-feminists in various locations around campus; (4) We upload the videos, edit and arrange the clips in iMovie, and ROFL at our group's collective hilariousness.

(Kidding about that last part. But we did really enjoy making this, and we hope you guys think it's funny!)

My favorite part of the process was coming up with quotes to use in the video. For the most part, we used concepts covered in this course-- or, maybe more accurately, the inverse of concepts covered in this course-- as a springboard for sound bites. We combined poking fun at feminist theory ("Freud was so spot on!"; "Meaning is not found in the difference"; "Who's Judith Butler?"; "Gender is essential"; "You can fuck your way to freedom") with pop culture references ("Miley Cyrus represents my life"; "I'm so glad Rihanna's back with Chris Brown"; "I love Cosmopolitan"; "We should go to the Row more often") and statements about the social/political status of women in America ("Women make less than men? Liar"; "I'm definitely voting straight Republican next year"; "Women's suffrage? Is that the suffering of women?"; "What kind of sandwich do you want?"; "I think I might buy myself some bigger boobs"). Though you could debate the accuracy of labeling some of those statements as "anti"-feminist, we thought it would be funny to hyperbolically portray women (and men!) who unconsciously act in ways that undermine modern feminism. It's also interesting to note that some of the sound bites could be considered "lipstick feminist"-- which just goes to show how thin the line is between feminism and... What's the opposite of feminism? Regressive womanhood, I guess?

Further, how do we decide that someone is unequivocally feminist? After all, who decides what is good, accurate, or socially progressive feminism?

Just some food for thought.