Ugh, yes, unfortunately this happened. And while I’m not
proud of my inability to keep the social media monster tamed, I am absolutely
not ashamed for what I had to say.
I saw this video quite a while ago (it’s older than people think) but I was hoping its
sails wouldn’t catch wind in the sea of social media. Produced by FCKH8.com, it consists of several
young girls, donned in princess costumes, denouncing the many inequalities
women still have in today’s world by means of throwing out the F-bomb every few
sentences. The idea apparently was to draw attention to why the word “feminism”
is nearly considered a curse word as far as women’s rights. Much to my dismay,
I began seeing many of my Facebook friends (some of them actual friends, you know, like
the old days of real life) posting this video.
I tried to hold back, I really did.
But the monster inside me won out, and I posted this novel
of a status online:
Since over the course of writing that post, my Facebook
ranting alter-ego calmed down a little bit, I decided to use my blog as a means
of elaborating on my sudden outburst.
I grew up enjoying the entertainment of a lot of comedians,
most of whom I usually watched with my mom. Humor has always been an important
factor in my family.
My mom would always say that the best comedians were the
ones that didn’t need curse words to make them funnier. She would say that the
funniest ones were always funny enough on their own, and that they didn’t need
the shock value of dropping F-bombs and such to entertain their audience. Their
talent was enough.
By creating a video of cursing 8-year-old girls, we are
devaluing our cause. Feminism, true feminism, shouldn’t need a shock-value to
resonate with people – our cause is powerful enough on its own. By feeding
people this notion that we have to curse to matter, it takes away the very
meaning behind our message.
We want to be valued as women who are equal to men. We
strive to make these changes in our society and yet, we are victimizing ourselves
with this very type of propaganda.
Yes, perhaps using the F-word is empowering. But you know
what’s even more empowering? NOT
using the F-word. I’m telling you, being diplomatic and using reason to further
your argument goes a whole lot further than cursing in someone’s face. If
anything, this video is indeed proving that it’s easy to get hot-headed, throw a
tantrum, curse, spew out anything without a filter… those things are easy to
do. Women have not ever, and will not ever, have the luxury of easiness. Why
start now? We are strong enough to remain cool, calm, and collected; we are
intelligent enough to prove our point eloquently; we are determined enough to
maintain composure in the face of injustice.
Here’s a small memo to the FCKH8 campaign managers for
future reference. From a communication student who works closely with those in
marketing and advertising, let me tell you, at FCKH8, why this particular
campaign is a disappointment to me as a woman who identifies with feminism.
There were many, many other ways this could have been done cleverly without a
little girl speaking your vulgar script. Even I, who admittedly has not a
single creative bone in my body, can think of several different approaches this
method could have taken with the same message, same clever idea, but with a
much more positive channel. It pains me to see a campaign with my same motives
so lazily throw together something without thinking of the implications. Real
feminism, true feminism, has been revitalized by hard-working, determined,
passionately diplomatic men and women; it’s very sad to me that you think you
can just get away with a flimsy replicate of what those people have achieved.
How very un-feminist of you.
This our real fight
against inequality – not our fight against clean language. This movement may
have fooled many people into thinking its helping men and women be on equal standards,
but it’s really just a cop-out for a campaign to go the easy
route.
Demand more out of our social movements – they should be leading the way
for positive lasting change rather than demeaning the very cause they fight
for.
No idea who this is but it's kind of how I felt after this post.
