Anybody else remember this episode? In it, a female villain called Femme Fatale is stealing millions of dollars in Susan B. Anthony coins. Naturally, the Powerpuff Girls go to stop her. She then convinces them that men are all horrible because female superheroes aren’t as well known as male superheroes, even asking Blossom to name some to where her only answer is Wonder Woman.
They start acting bitter, refusing to do chores when the Professor asks and even telling the Mayor to save the town himself. Ms. Bellum and Ms. Keane talk to the girls and basically explain that being mean to guys won’t do anything and that isn’t the kind of message feminists should put out.
They proceed to beat up Femme Fatale while giving her a history lesson about Susan B. Anthony, the story where she voted and was found guilty because women couldn’t vote back then, but when the judge wanted to let her off easily because she was a woman, she forced them to take her to jail. The girls handle her and the lesson is that misandry will not stop misogny and we all should just respect each other.
And it fell on Tumblr’s deaf ears.
Ffillyrika:
Reblogging again because this is great.
The name of this trope is straw feminist and its purpose is to introduce an extreme “feminist” character solely to ridicule them and prove them wrong. The trope is complete bullshit because the straw feminist character tends to point out really valid shit (like lack of female superheroes) but all that gets drowned out and ultimately ignored because she’s so extreme in her hate for men and she’s eeeevil and hypocritical.
The episode starts with the narrator going on about how Townsville is a “city where everybody gets their fair turn,” where girls and boys get treated equally at school and literally no gender inequality until the evil Femme Fatale shows up and starts “inventing” sexism where there is none. The powerpuff girls turned feminists are portrayed as angry, man-hating and irrational.
And its frustrating because the powerpuff girls are strong, complex and interesting female characters but this episode basically distances them from the feminist label because that’s waaaaay too extreme.
Even Lauren Faust, the self-proclaimed feminist who wrote this episode, later said she regretted it. But I mean, sure. Go ahead and cry about how Tumblr ignored this super important lesson from a 15+ year old series that creates this fictional paradise where sexism doesn’t exist until the big bad feminist appears to start turning women against the poor men. wah.
So tldr: this trope is bullshit. this episode is bullshit. and this post is also bullshit.
Thank you
