![]() ![]() Gilman goes for it in a way that even some 21st-century progressives shy away from in the name of diplomacy. Though it reads like a plucky sci-fi adventure serial, at Herland’s heart is an unapologetically feminist treatise. I think that’s what is so deeply, viscerally empowering about Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1915 novella Herland, in which three swaggering male explorers discover a lost civilization populated entirely by women. “Cool” girls don’t complain.Īs a loud, stubborn, happily non-cool girl, I’ve grown accustomed to almost never seeing myself represented in media (except as a hairy, bra-burning punchline). Body positivity is not a “cool” segment of identity politics. ![]() It’s not “cool” to complain about sexism in the current blockbuster movie. It’s not “cool” to call out your friend’s racist joke. ![]() Cultural messaging is powerful, and for decades (centuries?) the message, not coincidentally, has been that being a feminist is profoundly not cool. Even in 2015, the word feminism still has a chilling effect on most rooms: in certain internet circles, it’s thrown around like a slur female pop stars and actors bend over backwards to emphasise that they’re into equality and stuff, but not in a scary way. ![]()
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