I feel like I've encountered a great deal of online debate over this video! For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, a video called "F-Bombs for Feminism," has gone viral this week, and Tatianna posted it below for all of us to check out!
One of my Facebook friends also posted this video with the caption, "This is why I hate feminism." I commented and said, "I don't think it's quite fair to judge an entire movement based on one controversial video that you disagree with." He then apologized and recognized that the feminism movement has a lot of positive aspects to it. I think what the video was aiming to do was fantastic, and I get that they used f-bombs as a way to gain attention, which certainly worked. What I'm so upset about is how everyone seems to be focusing on how little girls were saying fuck instead of listening to the issues the girls actually brought up.
I also commented on the "huffington post women's" page when they posted the video, saying basically what I said above. A woman commented and said "this is inappropriate because these parents allowed their children to lose some of their innocence talking about topics they don't understand." First and foremost, I basically told this woman that what another parent decides to enroll their child in really isn't any of her business in the first place, nor is it any of her concern. I also told her that when I was a child, I recognized gender inequality in my own way. I heard the term "boys will be boys," or "man up," a million times, among others. While this might not be on the same educated level as sexual violence and the wage gap, it's not like these girls haven't already experienced gender differences.
What do you all think?
Bridget
Given that F*ckH8 is a t-shirt company, I thought using little girls swearing to sell t-shirts for feminism was inherently anti-feminist. These girls also didn't seem to understand what they were saying, especially given the rape statistics. It sounded like they were handed a script to read and told to read it in a sassy and loud way.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, the points they raised were valid, but I do think the video gave the feminist movement a bad name. It's just a new way for feminism to be "controversial," and I think people are associating swearing six year olds to feminism at large, which is hugely problematic. And inaccurate.
I think it would have been better to ask little girls to explain what they thought some of these issues were, and perhaps leave out the more touchy concepts like rape, seeing as few six year olds are even educated on sex. If the little girls didn't understand how that could happen, explaining it to them and getting their reactions could be great. It could have been adorable and shown off our actual message rather than slapping viewers with little girls "swearing for feminism."
In short, statistical info was spot on; communication method, not so much...