The girlboss has had her reign, and today she is usurped by a new queen: the bimbo. So claims a New York Times opinion essay, which catapulted the relatively obscure profile of various self-proclaimed “Bimbos of TikTok” into the national spotlight. These new pink-clad, scantily-dressed, dumb-playing personalities claim they are enlisting this traditional put-down for an attractive, dumb woman for the feminist cause – but what does this “new age of bimbofication,” with its emphasis on pink, sparkles, and overexposure have to do with women? Why have internet feminists eagerly exchanged the serious strivings of the girlboss for the bimbo in her vapid performance of hyperfemininity?
#BimboTok is Taking Off
As those even minimally acquainted with the social media giant know, TikTok generates massively popular trends that come and go within the short span of a day. Short videos, tailored to your tastes by their uncannily mind-reading algorithm, flow by in a stream of consciousness – shaping your tastes in turn almost imperceptibly. The algorithm shapes content for you while simultaneously shaping your desire. TikTok is Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter rolled into one. It turns everyone into viewer and viewed. As one observer put it, “many beautiful creators of all different races, sizes, abilities, genders, and sexualities [participate in] the bimbo trend.” Those who produce the most outlandish content, or can claim the most relevance by appealing to inclusivity, intersectionality, or social justice, gain the most attention. One could say that the rising prominence of hyperfeminine performance is the product of an increasingly unhinged feminism which no longer acknowledges womanhood for what it is – a given, biological, bodily category. When the category of women ceases to be a given, even the degradation of femininity – the hyperfeminine – becomes acceptable and even encouraged as a form of radical autonomy.
Not Just for Women
The only way “bimbo-ism” can possibly receive a welcome reception from other feminists is by subverting the meaning of feminist language to its own ends – which have more to do with putting on a culturally-produced caricature of womanhood than securing rights and protection for women. Bimbo-ism equates the long-fought fight for equal dignity, equal opportunity, or bodily safety with achieving “confidence [in]…the expression and identity that makes you feel the best.” Feminists are kidding themselves if they think that bimbo-ism will at all succeed in righting the wrongs of patriarchy, let alone the toxic feminism of the hyper-achieving girlboss. Both extremes are about accommodating and appeasing the willfulness of others, whether they be men or men pretending to be women. As GLAMOUR magazine noted, the goal is to eliminate ‘physical or identity-based requirements to being a Bimbo,’ turning this reactionary opposition to the girlboss into a similar, albeit cartoonish effort to abolish the uncomfortable reality of sexual difference. But where the effort to smash glass-ceilings and bring equal representation to the workplace sought to level the playing field, bimbo-ism levels womanhood to the ground. It obliterates any possibility of meaningful conversation about laws for supporting real woman, who work and give birth and raise families as a result of who they are, not any superficial identity.
Toss ‘Trendy’ Feminism
When feminism loses itself – its sense of whom it serves and to what end – it betrays women themselves. We get tired old stereotypes reframed as “empowerment”; distractions and failure to nourish and protect women as a society or government. Women have an incredible ability for resilience and creativity which has been historically neglected, and something similar can be said of mainstream feminism in the present day. While some may find it fun, funny, or liberating to look on as the bimbo makes a splash in the New York Times, everyone should recognize its contemptible distortions of femininity for what they are. They do a massive disservice to women at home and abroad who need a feminism of virtue, not vacuity, to shield them from truly oppressive regimes and social indignities. If we want to serve women well, we should encourage others, and ourselves to turn away from this vicious brand of TikTok feminism toward a feminism of virtue – one concerned with the reality of the person, rather than the entertainment value of the latest trends.
