how pop "feminism" fails us.

Sabrina Carpenter seems like the type to be attracted mostly to the image of powerful men and can't for the life of her figure out that capitalism and the patriarchy are the problem behind the immaturity in powerful men. That's a least what her glamour and art style suggest to me? Capitalism/patriarchy plus this type of pop feminism is just a self-feeding machine ready to be exploited by everybody. And nobody ends up looking at their attachment schemas.

0:38 horseshoe theory? Lets stop using the horseshoe theory. It’s not useful for anything. I mean for politics communists and fascists literally have nothing in common besides being against the status quo, and someone who hates woman and loves woman are only similar for being on an extreme.

i used to like sabrina’s music until i came to the realisation that she really isn’t doing anything for satire purpose. i think the man’s best friend album cover had especially caused me to change my mind, because if nobody could tell whether or not it was satire or serious, then it seemed incredibly problematic and suggestive in all the wrong ways. if young girls are viewing this material, and they think that the behaviour shown is okay, then they’ll learn all the wrong morals and we will never be able to move forward in feminism!! i agree with everything mentioned in this video. all examples that you used were insightful and i will definitely be reading up on those books sometime.

I really enjoy your commentary videos and this one was especially interesting to me.

Understanding feminist thought more deeply has become really important to me as a man because it’s become quite clear to me that we all, regardless of gender, stand to gain a lot from the ideas of freeing ourselves from gendered and societal strictures and actually explore who we ARE as human beings that are central to feminism.

The pop-feminist “men are trash but you gotta have em” angle always read to me much like a gender-inversion of the old boys drinking-buddy complaints about girlfriends and wives. I think of my old coworker saying “women: can’t live with em, can’t live without em” and realizing how much today’s idea of feminism as vague misandry with no actual thought of developing oneself as an individual is really just a surface level reversal of this.

This kind of thinking on both ends bugs me because in a lot of ways it really reads as an assumption that this is what the opposite sex simply is: a group to be annoyed by, disappointed in, endlessly complained about, but nevertheless depended on. Aside from the obvious negative judgement in those statements there’s also an inherent invalidation of people who strive to be better, better friends better partners better human beings, and live larger than the stereotypes assigned to them by their birth sex. The idea that we could be more as human beings than a constant annoyance to members of our preferred sex is never really taken seriously.

Co-opting the language of misogyny and simply flipping the script on it is not empowerment, it’s business as usual, and lo and behold the “gender war” is in full swing in mainstream online spaces. Go figure.

Rejecting an entire sex carries with it the rejection of the idea that people can be better than the strawman of the sex you want to complain about for clout or money.

You’re soooo good everytime Lani
Thank you so much omg

As an aroace person I want to make music as one of the rare aroace artists.

Anyone who prescribe to these industry co opted ideology should never be trusted with anything

i luv ur hair!

Feminism was never abt equality from the jump
Even the first wave feminists were the biggest misandrists
No wonder why people like Andrew Tate became famous
It's going down very quick
At this point, it doesn't matter how many self proclaimed feminists who always talk about egalitarianism try this " this is not real feminism" bs

You just dont know how many so called progressive people I had to unsubscribe because of their grifting. These people cry about "purity" culture, "choice feminism" but absolutely forget how women get blatant hatred from her fandom for giving just opinions. Like misogyny is only bad for Sabrina But not for other women😂.

Sex

28:17 they’ll also defend anything a blond white conventionally attractive white woman does. It’s fucking weird. Sabrina was very clearly microagressive towards a fan at Coachella and they defended that too.

I loved this, very captivating and well-delivered essay. Thank you for your work.

16:11 , I really think even though they are often leveled at the same place, Olivia Rodrigo has a lot of really good not male centered songs, although they aren’t really always happy and positive. She covers a lot of important topics about transitioning from a teenager to an adult, personal insecurities, and discovering yourself. And despite some of her songs covering the classic breakups and relationships, I do think she goes a little deeper into her feelings. While she may not be the feminist we are looking for and I don’t truly know that much beyond her music, I have always thought she was a much better pop role model than Sabrina, who message has always been male and sex centered as I’ve noticed.

My brother walked in my room while I was watching it so I started talking to him about it. I agree how you at around 50:00 you said "it's hard to defend men but it's important to". We had an interesting conversation about how men need women and women need men. I explained to him why women might feel that way because of our history and dealing with toxic men and a toxic system and he basically kept saying that if men didn't exist we wouldn't be here today. I kept trying to say how women have benefits too and was trying to defend women. I realized halfway through we were both defending our own gender. I ended up agreeing and saying we do need men and they protected during the cavemen and hard times and how our world was just set up this way and it got him to listen to me a lot more. I then said something along the lines of women feminist that are the loudest today are the men hating feminist and they ruin it for actual feminist who just want equality. Then we talked about ying and yang and how nature was set up where we need each other. I feel like if we don't just judge men it's way easier to also see their perspective and in turn they'll listen to you a lot more.

It's crazy that she says she "hates men" but simultaneously contribute to the hypersexualisation of women bodies which only serves men btw and hurt women and girls

I hadn't properly heard of womanism before, but when you mentioned it I did a short bit of research on it and....I think it's what I've thought of feminism as, this whole time. Which it's not really. Womanism seems much more equal and intersectional. I can't stop thinking about the difference in when "women got the right to vote" Vs when that included all woman. Feminism that isn't intersectional is working against itself. Like lateral oppression I think.

Obviously a femme can not be an icon for femme sexual liberation while they are being raped continually. I am Pop and I feel sad fir the sate of affairs. Most sad. And work.

😅😊😊😊😊

I still don't understand how her(Sabrina) fashion isn't male gaze? She literally wears which every guy would like to see a woman in. Especially her juno poses. which guy won't like that? Men are visual creature and women are vocal. She sings about stuff women love and dress and behave how men would love

In my opinion, us constantly convincing and encouraging the “it’s not that deep sentiment”, while often used to purposefully shut down and minimize sentiments, is more a sign of our defeatist resignation in our culture as whole. It’s not that any of us lack the capacity to engage with media through critical thinking (though you could argue we need to do better through our education systems to promote that in the first place), it’s that we CHOOSE not to engage with it critically and use the easy excuse of “it’s not that deep”. Yes, there are moments to take a step back when it comes to over analysis and over engagement with pop culture media, but ignoring the CENTRAL messages and themes radiating from the content YOU choose to put out is harmful willful ignorance.

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I am a big Taylor Swift and was a big Sabrina Carpenter fan. After this video, I’ve realized Taylor’s flaws and realized I never thought about it that way. For Sabrina, I also never thought about it that way. This changed my entire perspective on feminism too. Thank you so much!!! You definitely gained a new subscriber

Honestly as a man, human fallibility is universal rather than gender dependent. Lower rates of physical crime among women stem from biological size constraints rather than superior moral intent. Instead, female anti social behaviour often manifests as highly destructive relational aggression, such as psychological warfare and social exclusion. This capacity for harm is statistically evident in environments without men, as highlighted by high intimate partner violence and divorce rates within lesbian relationships. Extending this nuance to societal power structures, blaming the average man for the patriarchy is entirely inaccurate. Rather than a gender based conspiracy, the system operates as an elite hierarchy where powerful individuals of both genders, including wealthy women who actively enforce and benefit from these structures, exploit social injustice to protect their shared class interests. The everyday working man faces high suicide rates, dangerous workplace hazards, and zero systemic influence, making him a victim of this elite hierarchy rather than its architect. True equality requires that we hold individuals accountable for their actions and character rather than their demographic groups. We need to stop viewing social issues through a lazy binary lens that automatically paints one side as the permanent oppressor and the other as entirely innocent. Only by acknowledging that the capacity for greed, cruelty, and manipulation is a universal human trait can we actually address systemic injustice effectively.

7:59 and as Lorde also says.. “we will never be royals”..

The same girl who will go on social media posting surface level feminism will also date men who cancel out her vote. The trend is not worth your own bodily rights

another artist i love who often sings about female friendship (and other topics) is wolf alice. i really recommend checking them out!

45:02 Wait what?!

this really made me realise how thin the line is between de-centreing and centreing men that i have definitely overstepped before

Well i believe it’s quite unfair to expect from a woman to always be a role model. I’m not saying this as a Sabrina’s fan, im not. Yeee she writes stupid songs about sex but so do most men and they never hear non about it. She is openly sexually free and “freaked out” which i believe in these progressively more conservative times is more empowering then not. She has never taken a strong political stance (of what im aware of) and did not claim to be any role model whatsoever. She is a pop star writing about her love life and wearing skimpy outfits on stage like many before. I am a strong believer that things usually are that deep but from where im standing the conservative influences started to influence ppl to believing that women openly enjoying sex is smth bad and that she has to prove that she is beyond that. She has no obligation to, im guessing she is a profound person under all that persona but she has business to run and that simply is what sells.

You bring up points most feminists would not touch even with a 10 feet pole and you are so close to being great.
But claiming that 'black women know better than white women' 🤮
This is the exact same thought process of white women, they think there are better than the rest.