Hot White Woman Feminism™
resonating w/ the vague gender politics of women I literally do not know
There is a segment of TikTok influencer holding a torchlight for the remaining resonance of feminist consciousness on the internet. Their purpose, I think, is to introduce basic tenants to the young and terminally online who frequent the infinite scroll page. TikTok has been decidedly anti-feminist for a few years now, and this brand of influencer teaches the ABC’s of a type of feminism, as basic as it is needed. I started calling it “Hot White Woman Feminism” earlier this year as a nod to its most recognizeable spokeswomen — Emily Ratajkowski, Alex “Call Her Daddy” Cooper, Dasha Nekrasova, and (sometimes?) Julia Fox.
These are all extremely smart, strategic, pretty yt women, and my hypothesis is that they know exactly what they are doing. In 2022, we are beyond the exploratory, fearful imaginings of world + internet. We’re there, we’re living it, in all of its post-modern, hypersymbolic, coded, chaos. Our conceptions of femininity and desireability are not immune to the reconceptualized assumptions that continue to uphold and protect hegemony, as it jumps from the physical world to the screens in our pockets.
This converstaion cannot take place without a consideration of the world post-Kardashian (or current-KarJenner / Kurrent ?). A desireable performance of femininity is synonymous with class performance, and class mobility if done convincingly. There have always been people who adopt the hegemonic mannerisms of femininity and beauty in order to manipulate and move about the world. I embrace this practice, although I’m still developing an ethical consciousness of how this can/should be done. The issue arrises, though, because the concepts of femininity and beauty are not universally defined, nor do they benefit all women. Historically, they benefit certain women over others, and although the metric keeps changing, it seems that it will always benefit white women first, and skinny women most pIaces. Smart women like EmRata and Julia Fox probably know this, but as long as they operate as brands, there is no way to know for sure.
Here’s a difference for me (please remember, I’m a moron) — Julia Fox is objectively cool because of her confidence in the stuff she makes and does. She is an artist from a working class New York background who worked as a dominatrix in high school and has maintained a presence in the creative arts scene. She has done installation work, she makes clothes, she did an entire art show of illustrations created with her own blood. The bitch is cool.
EmRata is also cool, but because of her career trajectory, she codes as “pretty” before she is cool. She also seems very funny, both women do. However, EmRata’s insecurity steams off of her public feminist persona in a way that begs questions of what she had to see or do to arrive at her cushioned position in pop culture and media spaces. I don’t know these people at all, but there seems to be a rage there, which is an organizing tool.
Even if this distinction is accurate, though, both women are victims of a system that will sooner leech from their bodies because of its feminine presentation, than embrace them because of it. Their feminist consciousness performed in their latest media (TikTok, memoir, podcasts) belies a simultaneous shakeiness and sincerity. It sometimes feels fake, but it seems like they are trying very, very hard. I think that they are trying to help other women, but I also have no idea what their actual politics are.
Their expanded media presence feel like an disruption to elitism, even though both women inhabit a constant level of elitism by virtue of their whiteness, desireability, and proximity to powerful men. It’s also worth mentioning that EmRata’s parents are upper. middle. class.
My HWWF Media Consumption
'My Body' was a really good book to me, even though very little of it will apply to my life. It was a project in honest memoir mixed with the core tenants of feminist film critique, which I love. Most books I actually want to read, I’ll just listen to on tape (concentration, immersion, doesn’t make me fall asleep). It appealed to me in the same way that fanfiction does — the glamorized/fetishized musings of a professionally hot woman who does hot woman things. For a woman who dabbles in the experiences of “hotness” (embracing desireability, manipulating the male gaze), but at the same time feels very uncomfortable within it, I appreciated EmRata’s vulnerability, especially in an industry as old and impervious as the publishing world. She’s had to see things and she was brave to tell her story.
She talks about people assuming she is stupid and thinking that her life is easy because of her looks. She talks about the socio-psychological toll it takes to have to conceal your intelligence in order to book jobs, and the toll this can take on someone operating in a space strictly for financial security and/or escape. This can also resonate, at points. In late stage capitalism, all things are commodifiable vis-a-vis visual imagery. To make money at all, these days, it seems like we all require a constant, obsessive awareness of imagery and the ways it is wielded to create, uplift, and suppress certain messaging. Memes disrupt this project with their funny ambiguity, and it seems like humor is the medium through which EmRata views her work as a model, and now, intellectual influencer. For that, she is hilarious, and everyone likes humor to an extent.
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My takeaways from ‘My Body’
Feminist consciousness can start from an awareness of seeing and being seen
It is not your responsibility to downplay the aesthetic, but for safety reasons, do what you feel you have to do.
The algorithm that matters most is the one in your own heads. You can manipulate it but be aware that you will be manipulating yourself in the process.
Live laugh love the algorithm
If you are going to profit off of your own image, allow yourself the space to also profit off of your voice (make sure to add a regionally ambiguous vocal fry).
What Rata doesn’t speak as well to is what happens to women who do not fulfill the desireability requirements of the men surrounding them. This oversight may stem from sincere ignorance, not maliciousness, but in turn it does what white feminism seems to always do — protect the richest, prettiest, whitest, thinnest, most able-bodied individuals. It remains to be seen if she, or any other feminist girlbosses will serve women other than themselves, because it is impolite to ask people who they are willing to protect versus not. In the meantime, though, I appreciate any time a woman creates a safe environment for people to talk about their trauma.
The Pageantry of it all
I enjoy the content because it is fun, not because I agree with everything being said. The women know that they are interesting to listen to and/or look at, depending on who their audience is, and they are choosing to give people a show. It’s Marilyn Monroe, it’s Scarlett O’Hara, it’s (sorry, I’m gonna say it) camp!
To make oneself appealing to the male gaze is an act of pageantry to maIe desirability and femme approval, to win is to be accepted and hopefully embraced. It’s a sincere ploy for power and I’ve learned in recent years that the suppression of the desire to be seen is just as much of a scam. Self-depricating your looks, being willfully “not-hot,” and even not taking care of oneself does not protect you from being exploited. Men are going to do it anyway because they are demented (in my opinion). Several women in the online space make a point to highlight this paradox, using different approaches. Julia Fox has spoken about having the luxury of unlearning the disireability compulsion, and notes that for most people, this effort is a lifelong project.
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I respect that EmRata at least does her audience the courtesy of citing bell hooks and Laura Malvey and encouraging other young women to be aware of their personal simulations. Some women don’t proclaim this lesson until way later in life, but I’ve had to learn that this doesn’t make them bad women. At worst, it makes them slow, and we’re all slow at something. Not better or worse, just different, I say to myself.
The trust isn’t there, but it can be built. An understanding of the male gaze is something I think everyone can get behind, but I’m fearful of the ways that it will inevitably be weaponized by bad actors to ensue chaos and harm to the people who are already the most vulnerable. Do not-hot people benefit from Hot White Woman Feminism? Sex workers? Black Trans women? Children? Genenerationally poor people? Who do the hottest people even care about protecting? I don’t know, my brain hurts.
books, media, and concepts that helped me embrace feminist film critique
Ballroom, Beyoncé, bell hooks, ballet classes, Laura Mulvey, Rico Nasty, male gaze, psychoanalysis, phallocentrism, scopophilia, narcissism, castration anxiety, fetish, pornographic gaze, oppositional gaze, fascism, elitism, pageants, mothers, babysitting/nannying, food service, yachting, Bravo, nightlife, etiquette
"Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it's all a male fantasy: that you're strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it.” — Margaret Atwood
Anna Delvey’s entire thing
Andi Zeisler's 2016 book, We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to Covergirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement, examines marketplace feminism (the appropriation of feminist messaging as marketing strategy), and relationships between pop culture and feminist challenges to power through activism.
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2008)
Taylor Swift discography
Internet Princess Substack