A real movement cannot be changed but rather enacts change.
+Sabrina Carpenter and Feminism in short. +Why it's not really about her.
The discourse circulating about Sabrina Carpenter's sultry new image tells me that people’s perceptions of the feminist movement is significantly warped. I implore people to branch out intellectually. Read from people who don’t look like you, talk like you, think or even speak like you and you will be made all the better for it.
Hood Feminism changed me completely. Though I only read it this year it perfectly scribed most of what I’ve ruminated about the essence of the feminist movement. A companion to Bad Feminist (2018)by Roxanne Gay, if you will.
Mikki Kendall rationally encapsulates all that is wrong with how we grasp the movement, going far beyond the “concept” of feminism, made evident through the cracks in our modern day labels of female empowerment and positivity.
Mainly with this essay I intend to say that feminism isn’t just about women’s looks, nor women’s placement in the lives of men. But overtly, the value of women in the world, the value of women to themselves and the access to quality of life they have being the XX organism they are. It was never about being accepted for how one looks or behaves as a woman, not even the commonly propagandised motif of “choice” but restructuring robust age-old foundations that weaponised the existence of sexual disparities. When we think of feminism appropriately in this way, then we will know that no album cover, no blonde haired blue eyed petite songstress can undo it.
Kendall discusses at length a feminism that must go beyond respectability politics and other frivolous concerns of visibility. There was a Feminism once erected for the sanctity and quality of life which we now seem to be letting slip through our fingers.
Women around the world are still being castrated. Not too long ago we heard of the women in Gaza who were using strips of tent for their menstrual cycle. And there are is the ever-looming concern of women’s reproductive rights in every part of the planet.
But there are also men who are killing themselves at a disturbing rate because of patriarchal pressures. There is an insurgence of anti-social behaviour due to Porn. And there is the growing rate of misogyny amongst younger and younger males that are increasing the mortality rate of their younger and younger female counterparts.
And yet we believe feminism is about the choice to be hyper-sexed or sexless. Feminism is about life. Always has been, always will be.
My most grating bone to pick with this discourse is the feminism that is set on being white, westernized and male-gaze centred. Feminism will never amount to anything and conquer the larger issues affecting women until we can move from this exclusionary sphere.
There is a model of the ideal woman in the Western world which doesn’t take much deciphering. This side of the world makes it very clear what is acceptable and what is not. And has sadly, shaped a vast majority of the world’s perception of human life and order.
So, if we are attempting to disrupt systemic ideologies, laws and social habitats we cannot adhere nor look to the same organizations to dismantle it. To put it quite rudimentarily, we must think and look outside the box. As Audre Lorde stated in 1984, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”, so what on earth are we doing validating meagre displays of femininity against a movement that sought to and still seeks to change the entire world order?
I’ve seen people argue that Carpenter is a result of the choice that feminism laid for women to have. A part of a commonly argued idea on social media that Feminism is maximised when women can choose to be a Trad Wife or an Only Fans star. Again, we are set back by choice. Nobody chooses to be a female-and I exercise the biological definition given the progressive state of our society. However, one chooses to become a woman. That is the illusion of the choice presented; to be womanly in the way that is culturally expected, heavily concentrated on looks and appearance.
I don’t hate Carpenter and I do not think she is ruining women all over the world for this cover. She is giving her dominant audience in the Western world exactly what they want. Sex.
But if your feminism doesn’t branch out, I implore you to check its roots. If it doesn’t scream out for the daily injustices occurring all around the globe, get a new vocabulary. And if it fails to see beyond cute skirts, blowouts and sensual lyricism then you must inspect the tint in your glasses.