Plus, I dunno, white middle-class feminists spend so much time hand-wringing about how they only ever analyse white middle-class femininity to the exclusion of all else, but this shit says to me they’re failing to analyse white middle-class femininity (I mean, obviously cause they’re creating situations where they’ll be comfortable, and analysis of the femininity that pretty much has made you what you are is going to be uncomfortable).

Fact is, between a debutante at a debutante ball, a girl having a birthday party, or a feminist confounding expectations by wearing birkenstocks under her dress (or not wearing the birkenstocks), the results are the same, everyone looks at you, you’re a beautiful and unique snowflake. That’s what makes it essentialist, white, middle-class femininity – the rest is just a choice of props. Jessica Valenti, or that silent actress in Sunset Boulevard raving about “all those wonderful people out there in the dark”, it’s all the same, one shoots someone and the other puts out crappy self-help books.

Plus, putting out a self-help book made up of your old blog posts counts as “I’m an intelligent woman” – railing against all those stereotypes but “intelligent woman” is no less of a one than “dumb blonde” or “accomplished woman” back in the 19th century.

And you have no idea how many white middle-class feminists you can piss off all in one go by telling them these things, because those stereotypes that pre-second-wave feminists railed against now make up the backbone of white, middle-class, dominant feminism. It’s like knowing the Touch of Death or something.

bfp