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alt title(s): Feminazi; Straw Feminism 
We swear allegiance to Valerie Solanas and shall purge this earth of disgusting male pigs!! There are now women politicians, women soldiers, women scientists, women astronauts. But our mission is only half-done: we still haven't prevented men from doing those things!
— April June, Chilly Beach
This standard TV "feminist" character isn't very nice at all. The vast majority of real-life feminists are only out to get equal pay for equal work, respect for their rights as people equal in dignity to a man, and a lot of other phrases that use the word "equal" in similar ways. A lot of female characters have this as an understated part of their personality. Indeed, so do quite a few male characters.
However, a character identified as a "feminist" in the media nowadays is often really a "militant (read "psychotic") feminist"; the radical, paranoid, potentially violent misandrist type subscribing to the Second Wave who wants to bring the patriarchy to its knees so she can more easily kick it in the gonads in retaliation of the centuries of oppression and coercion men have put women through just because they could. In short she wants revenge for something she may not have suffered from herself... As a result, she will be hostile to any heterosexual male present, and quite possibly gay men as well.
The character will usually express a wide range of idiosyncratic beliefs, from an insistence on spelling the words "woman" and "women" differently, possibly with one or more Y's, and that the honorific "Mrs." is the possessive of "Mr.", to the view that any object that is longer than it is wide will be seen as a phallic symbol intended to express patriarchal power. She can usually be found wearing Camo, or at least a ball-breaking power-suit, but skirts are a definite no-no. And be careful if you happen to say either that God is a man or that women can choose to not work outside the home. If this character does express any opinion on a subject not directly related to women or the oppression thereof, she'll be speaking like a grown-up Granola Girl.
And not for no reason is the term " FemiNazi" sometimes used to describe this type of character; expect her to view every single thought, word and deed on the part of a man as yet more proof of the hateful patriarchal conspiracy to suppress and dominate women (no matter how innocuous the action or how many logical loops she has to jump through to reach this conclusion), whilst at the same time actively yearning to suppress, dominate and, in certain particularly extreme examples, completely exterminate all men. As such, it goes without saying that she'll often be depicted as a complete hypocrite, automatically buying into any Double Standard that denounces in outrage particular actions of men whilst simultaneously applauding any woman who engages in the exact same behaviour, usually under the justification that women are "reclaiming" themselves or "striking back" against the evil tyranny of men. This is usually based on the assumption that a woman possesses automatic moral superiority to a man.
For perhaps obvious reasons, this character is often a lesbian, and usually a pretty fanatical one at that; if not, then she'll either be "sex-negative", i.e. opposed to sex on principle, as the act itself is seen as biased in favor of men, or take the exact opposite approach, and try to use men as she perceives they use women. For added irony value, the supposedly sex-negative variation will often be far more obsessed with sex than any of the supposedly ' perverted' men she condemns. She will also have a rather alarming tendency to define ' rape' as 'any method by which a man might convince a woman to have sex, including a supposedly sincere emotional relationship'; no matter how explicitly the woman consents, the Straw Feminist will nevertheless twist it into a case of rape. And if the man ever stops loving her, he raped her retroactively! Curiously enough, in many cases despite her raging hatred for men, all she usually needs to transform her from raging anti-man crusader to submissive 1950s Barbie housewife doll is the love — or even just a close encounter with, If You Know What I Mean — with a good man... or, at least, a handsome one.
As you can (hopefully) see, she's a special and particularly extreme case of Strawman Political, and exists largely to express the writer's own dislike of feminists, or at least the more psychotic ones. Note that it's not always all the writer's fault, however; this is a particularly pervasive stereotype in Real Life, to the extent that normal feminists can be reluctant to be identify themselves as such, due to the powerful and unpleasant connotations associated with the term. Some might prefer to be known as egalitarians, a term with broader application, but no less accurate for someone who wants equal rights to bridge the gender gap specifically. Unfortunately, this trope is not without its basis in Real Life, and a few radical feminists have been heard to express views not dissimilar to those raised above: they're just a much, much smaller minority than you would think from watching TV, is all.
A society built upon this mindset is a Lady Land.
Examples:
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Anime
- Benio and the Zuka Club from Ouran High School Host Club are a troupe of lesbian actresses (parody of the real-life Takarazuka Revue) who advocate female superiority and one point (pictured above) perform a Nazi salute against a backdrop of a red flag reading "woman" instead of a Swastika — literal feminazis. Their radicalism is probably just a result of being headstrong teenagers who are just as silly as the Host Club, though, and at the end of the episode Haruhi, whom they'd been trying to recruit, tells them that she finds their viewpoint "interesting and unique" but doesn't feel like leaving her friends in the Host Club. In the original manga, the conflict is eventually resolved with the Host Club's apologetic invitation to one of the Zuka Club's performances, which everyone found very enjoyable. For some reason, probably because of the differences in the story this ending was replaced with banana peel jokes in Bones' anime adaptation.
- It should be noted that both sides were mocked equally during these episodes; while the Zuka Club were portrayed as ridiculous over-the-top feminazis, the Host Club's reaction was a hilariously hypocritical homophobic one that bordered on chauvinist (see Tamaki's reaction).
- Not to mention the obvious irony, at least in the anime: the Zuka Club is essentially the same as the Host Club, only with female members and different traditions. Benio especially is obviously Tamaki's female counterpart (which is emphasized in the second Zuka Club episode where she often behaves the same way as Tamaki).
Comic Books
- DC Comics' Amazons hinge upon this trope, at least in the post-Crisis incarnations where all the Themysciran Amazons are the reincarnated souls of women who were abused and killed by men.
- Taken to a ridiculous extreme in Frank Miller's All-Star Batman and Robin, in one issue of which Wonder Woman violently shoves a man out of her way while growling, "Out of my way, sperm bank!"
- The tendency to view Diana and all Amazons as Straw Feminists is attacked in an issue of Wonder Woman written by Gail Simone (that came out after Amazon's Attack, possibly as a Take That). Diana is looking over rights to a film that's being based on her life, and among the many, many problems she has with the script, she cringes over one part that paints Amazon society as a Lady Land with a disgusted opinion on men. She she sees this scene, her internal narration wonders "Why is it that people feel that a belief in women equals a hatred of men?" The segment also attacks All Amazons Want Hercules, with a scene in the script where Diana claims she can never be with a man unless he defeats her in battle.
- In the early Marvel Transformers comics, the Transformers were written as genderless. For some reason that was never completely explained, human females protested that the Autobots were misogynistic for not having any women. In response, the Autobots looked up human female traits and built Arcee—to which the human females responded with ire, because she was pink. Despite demonstrating that she was a competent fighter, Arcee was never seen or referenced again after that issue.
- It's easy to perceive the Transformers as being Always Male, and the labeling of them as "genderless" a mere excuse by writers. WALL-E, for example, didn't have a sex either, but is almost universally perceived as being male (and for that matter, EVE being female). It could be argued this is something the audience has to change within their own perceptions, rather than a flaw in the work itself, but in the world we live in, if characters that "seem" male are to be portrayed as genderless, a bit more discussion and emphasis of this fact has to happen before this is commonly accepted.
- Wall-E was voiced by a male actor (Ben Burrt) and Eve was voiced by a female actor (Elissa Knight) and all of the original autobots were given male voices. This may have something to do with how their genders were perceived.
- The IDW comics (written by the same person as the above) had an interesting take—Arcee, and indeed the use of gendered pronouns among the Transformers, seems to be a Mad Scientist's experiment, and she is somewhat contemptuous that everyone uses female pronouns in reference to her and male pronouns in reference to themselves without even realizing that she's still technically a sexless machine, as are they.
- Which brings up a whole new set of problems, in that the first and so far only female Transformer was driven completely murderously insane from the trauma of being made female. Also, if she's the only differently-gendered person, where did the 'female pronoun' come from in the first place and how did they know to use it?
- The Cirinists and Kevillists in Cerebus the Aardvark are straw constructions of the second and third waves of feminism, respectively. Ironically, the writer's own misogynist rants made him a real-life male equivalent to this trope.
- Goldilocks from Fables seems to be this, but she's really cynically using her rhetoric as a tool to manipulate the people around her.
- Both used and subverted in Y The Last Man, which contains both the insane, violent Amazons as well as other, rational feminists (both peaceful and not). In fact, the entire series can be seen as a look at feminism in its numerous permutations, often at odds, as in real life. In writer Brian K. Vaughn's words, "...before I started work on Y, I read as many feminist writers as possible. Because if you put Andrea Dworkin and Naomi Wolf in a room together, they'd fight to the death."
- Femizombies? That'd be the best cage match EVER!
- Um, Naomi Wolf is still alive.
Meaning that she won on a technicality, perhaps?
- Although her pro-feminist stance was portrayed as a good thing in the '70s, by the Justice League Europe days of the late '80s, Power Girl was portrayed as an obnoxiously outspoken feminist; this may have been a reflection of the more conservative attitudes of the Reagan years. Today, her attitudes are portrayed in a positive light again (though the Fanservice has been dialed up a bit as well).
- Marvel Comics supervillain Superia wants to either eliminate, enslave, or feminize all men— and doesn't mind sterilizing 90% of Earth's women to make it happen. As Anaconda of the Serpent Society puts it, "What'samatter, you didn't get asked out to the prom or somethin'?"
- Diane Di Massa took this to the extreme in Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist, who dreams of "a world without penises."
- The British adult comic Viz has Millie Tant, a fat, ugly and possibly lesbian (I don't know whether she's pretending to be to spite men or not) extreme feminist who spouts a lot of S.C.U.M.-esque nonsense and many strips end with her turning out to be a hypocrite.
Fan Fiction
- There is a recognised species of Mary Sue (possibly a sub-trope of the well-known Tsundere Sue) known as the Grrl or Psychofeminist Sue, who behaves like this and is especially prevalent in male-dominated canons such as Lord Of The Rings.
- One particularly strong example managed to cram this into a larger complex—Ravyyn, a witch in the Batman: Beyond setting (and, in fact, that category of story for fan fiction dot net), is such a New Age wannabe poseur that she substitutes spell components, demnies the possibility that men can do witchcraft, feels a witch MUST wear white samite unless they are evil, etc. She was so bad the Gotham coven spends at least half their time undoing her works, she turns Batman into a cat for the crime of.. being a guy, really, and goes so far as to try to prevent his being turned back until she's taken him to the freaking vet. Yes, for THAT.
Film
Literature
- General Jinjur from The Marvelous Land of Oz plotted the overthrow of King Scarecrow because she thought the Land of Oz was ruled by men for too long. May have actually been an Affectionate Parody of the early women's movement, as L. Frank Baum was actually the son-in-law of one of the movement's prime movers. The Other Wiki has more on the subject.
- In a subversion, the end of the story ends with Oz being ruled by a queen after all.
- Not to mention the fact that she's beaten by an army of genuine Action Girls.
- Left Behind. No, really, ugh.
- The Red Ajah from Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time really don't like men.
- Akasha in Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice. Though she does not use politically correct terms, since she's supposed to be an ancient Egyptian, she believes all violence on Earth is caused by men. Her plan is to use her near-omnipotent powers as mother of all vampires to destroy almost all the world's males and create a utopia run by women, with herself as benevolent queen and goddess. In the end she is destroyed by female twin vampires Mekare and Maharet, for personal reasons as much as to stop her plot. She may or may not really be a straw feminist since it's unclear whether or not the author agrees with her (persistent Author Avatar Lestat seems very ambivalent).
- Sisera Catheter in Postmodern Pooh, who dissects Winnie the Pooh from the standpoint of "gynocritical discourse." Though the book is an obvious exaggeration, the footnotes quoting Real Life academic feminists suggest that Poes Law applies to some extent.
Live Action TV
- Marcy Rhoades (later D'Arcy) from Married With Children was a proud feminist, but she only showed this side when she was around Al. Her constant bickering about women's rights eventually led him to start his own pro-male club called NO MA'AM... Which really never did anything besides sitting around Al's garage drinking beer and complaining about their wives or go hang out at the Jiggly Room.
"Jerry Springer ovulates."
- Samantha Carter in Stargate SG-1 was originally written like that, to the point of having an entire episode (aptly titled "Emancipation") dedicated to her fighting a male-dominated society. Needless to say, it's considered a Dork Age and that episode is considered one of the worst ever. The infamous "reproductive organs" speech from the pilot (which Amanda Tapping herself reportedly hated, saying that "nobody talks like that") was twice parodied in the later seasons (in the episodes "Moebius" and "200"). By that point, the Straw Feminist aspect of her character had long been toned down - instead, she proved feminist points by actually doing things.
- Dr. Luisa "Lu" Delgado from Strong Medicine, also an adult version of a Tsundere Sue. The series is produced by none other than Lifetime Channel, so what do you expect?
- Sometimes, Action Girl Olivia Benson gets straw-feministic lines in Law And Order: SVU, but it usually involves interrogating women who had themselves made clear straw feminist points. Detective Benson has been shown in the past acting sympathetic to suspects to get them to open up to her. Doesn't explain the tirade she gave Stabler a little later in one such episode, though.
- The episode Power from Blakes Seven contains two warring societies of - you guessed it - men (Hommiks) and women (Seska). Naturally, the women are depicted as abominations who were happier when they'd been tamed by the men. This was particularly depressing, considering up until then Blakes Seven had featured a large number of actual feminist characters.
- Arguably the point of that episode (beyond getting teleport to work on Scorpio) is that neither men or women are "complete" as a society without the other. Avon's crew succeeds because they work together while the Hommiks and Seska are effectively doomed without their (bisexual) protector who was killed the previous episode.
- Hermans Head had Handsome Lech Jay getting gut-punched by a butch member of WAMP (Women Against Male Persons), a feminist organization so radical they neuter gingerbread men.
- If she's not written well, C.J Cregg in The West Wing can sometimes border on this trope; fortunately, most of the time, she's written very well. Of note, however, is the episode 'The Women Of Qumar', in which C.J reacts very poorly the news of a US arms deal made to a Qurac-style country which has a poor record on women's rights; whilst the point the episode was making as a valid one, it unfortunately chose to make it by having C.J act in a very unprofessional, out-of-character and borderline Straw Feminist fashion.
- The episode 'Night Five' features a Straw Feminist intern who seems to exist solely so that the writers can knock her down and by extension any suggestion that their writing is in any way sexist.
- Lost In Space had an episode with this. The Straw Feminist villainess (who always got her Faceless Mooks to do everything for her) agreed to take Dr. Smith as her consort (after checking his teeth!), and spent most of the episode forcing the males to be her slaves and the females to accept her cultish female supremacism. The result was not so much offensive as unintentionally hilarious.
- One of the episodes of House mocks this trope. The patient is the personal assistant of a woman whose mission in life is to basically "enforce" gender equality in workplaces. When House finds out what she does, he tells his team to apologize for him raping her. "You know, metaphorically, by having a penis." She's seen in the cold open entering a board room full of men and snidely asking them why they didn't even "pretend to put a female on the board" and saying that there were plenty of secretaries and stenos downstairs. This is a pretty rough strawman even for US television, since she came off as more of a bitch than an egalitarian.
- Notably, the patient herself is a deliberate subversion of the trope; she's neither independent nor headstrong, and very submissive to her boss and organization's whims.
- Lilith House, a feminist organization on campus in season 3 of Veronica Mars, leads a lot of angry protests against a serial rapist on campus who shaves the heads of his victims. After a Halloween party at a frat house, one of its members is herself raped and shaved. They then launch an all-out attack against the fraternity house to get them banned from campus. Once Veronica proves that the fraternity house is innocent of the rape, they get very angry at her for stopping the fraternity house from getting banned. Oh, and the feminist who was raped? She faked the whole thing. Look, Rob, we know you want your world to be crappy and noiry where even the protagonist can be immoral and unethical, but sometimes you can take it too far.
- Rob based that off of Real Life, unfortunately. There wasn't a conspiracy, but the member in question simply stepped up tried to create an incident to bring things to a head, ala Tawana Brawley or J. Edgar Hoover's secretary writing inflammatory crap as "A Black Man.". It's happened before and it will happen again, unfortunately, so the series having that in there is just keeping it real. Then again, your mileage may vary.
- Dr Miller in Scrubs was a borderline case of this, though we were supposed to agree with her on some counts.
- The thing most fans hate her for is being offended when Turk proclaimed that she didn't have to worry because he would "take care" of the sexist pigs that were insulting her. To be fair, his tone was a little condescending.
- It doesn't excuse her being a superbitch.
- Jessie in Saved By The Bell usually sounds pretty ridiculous when she's protesting this, but it's even worse considerinng her actress starred in a film like Showgirls.
- Oh come on. Separate actress from role, if you please.
- Dr. Janice Lester from Star Trek The Original Series is one of these. She starts off frustrated that women can't be Starfleet captains, but quickly reveals herself to be an Ax Crazy who hijacks the enterprise in Kirk's body. Once she's in the captain's chair, she turns into a straight-up God Save Us From The Queen. Then, Kirk speculates that the real reason behind her actions is her hatred of being a woman.
- Sam from Quantum Leap finds himself a friend of one in one episode in the midst of woman's rights. She nearly hurts their cause by brandishing a gun at an officer and has to be be talked down by Sam.
Machinima
- Played for laughs in Red Vs Blue. When Donut is possessed by O'Malley, he mouths off about how bad patriachal society is.
Music
- Nellie McKay's song "Mother of Pearl" mocks the attitude behind this trope via Unreliable Narrator: the opening line is "Feminists don't have a sense of humor" and it continues on from there.
Opera
- Gilbert And Sullivan's Princess Ida (adapted from a poem by Tennyson), the Girl Graduates of the women's college at Castle Adamant learn that "Man is Nature's sole mistake." Of course, they repent in the end.
Tabletop Games
- GURPS Transhuman Space features an all-female colony that edges this trope, especially with some of its members experimenting with genetic engineering to make males unnecessary for reproduction. It's pointed out in the books that it is in fact obsolete within the context of the setting, as transhumanity has achieved true gender equality by 2100 when the game is set.
- In the World Of Darkness game Werewolf: The Apocalypse, the all-female Black Furies fit this trope to some extant. While some are into the spirituality of womanhood and/or seek gender equality and reproductive freedom, others are on a sacred quest to castrate every male they come across. But even the more well-rounded Furies have the Tribal Weakness of an easier time Frenzying against men due to pent-up frustration against them. They eventually became more well-rounded with later editions, going from man-hating Amazons to a mystical cult of warrior women that worshipped Gaia in her guise of Artemis and provided the Garou Nation with necessary prophecy.
- Which didn't help White Wolf in arguments that the WOD had become a mess of retcons in the Revised Edition, since three other Garou tribes already had the whole mystical/prophetic angle.
- A more concrete example comes with the new World Of Darkness Vampire: The Requiem. The Circle of the Crone is a covenant that is rather feminist in its leanings, but not to the point of straw—except for one faction within the covenant, the Daughters of the Goddess, who use for public example of their valuing men and not being misandrist a ritual where they sacrifice a male vampire, ritualistically called the Oak King. This is the only ritual where male vampires are allowed any sort of prominence, and they may only be the Oak King. Needless to say, the other covenants, and indeed most other factions within the Circle, ain't buyin' it.
Video Games
- Sam And Max: Season Two has Mrs.—sorry—Ms. Momma Bosco.
- One interviewee on the talk radio channel in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was one of these, contrasting with hip, somewhat stupid '80s girl Amy. The key comedy aspect in that interviewee was that she'd just spent a year "undercover" as a man and written a book on her findings. Moreover, the interviewee mentions learning various things about men over the process of being disguised as one, including how men find sports interesting, like looking at pictures of naked women, wear hats and smoke cigarettes. She's a pretentious Straw Feminist to boot, lambasting "half-hearted bra burners" in her interview.
- In keeping with the Grand Theft Auto series' satiric bent, the character in question was a straw parody of one real-life feminist who wrote a book about being disguised as a man. But, for the record, that feminist's book was far more positive.
- In Baldur's Gate II,Edwin briefly becomes one of these thanks to the Nether Scroll.
Web Comics
- Susan in El Goonish Shive is introduced as a misandrist female supremacist. A cringeworthy portrayal by itself, but luckily she gets some Character Development later on starting with the uncomfortable realization that her general prejudice against men may be serving as a backhanded excuse for her father's infidelity (as in "all men are creeps so Daddy couldn't help it"), as well as a transference of her mother's own issues against men resulting from this onto her.
- Jade from PvP once qualified as a Straw Feminist. This was most notable when she left Pv P to start up her own women's gaming magazine, where she even drove her fellow female writers insane. Of course, she had just been groped by Francis, so maybe this incident was justified.
- No stranger to Strawfolk, Nip And Tuck has Hortense, perpetually angry lizard womyn. (Although she seems to exist less to potshot Feminism, as to piss off the local Troglajocks so Tuck can swoop in play the badass, and to give Tuck's girlfriend Thelma someone to look good next to.)
Tuck: What? Feminism has double standards? Y'don't say... [1]
- The Wotch has D.O.L.L.Y. a militant feminist terrorist organization led by Ms. Natasha Dahlet who want to eradicate men from the world. Not by killing them, but by turning them female via Magi Tek. They try to recruit Anne who is well known for using her magic for Gender Bending. While a physical personification of Anne's anger does join them, Anne herself turns the tables on them by turning many of the members of D.O.L.L.Y. male. Notably, most the members of the group are actually brainwashed, only really Natasha and her Dragon (of sorts) Cory are really committed to the "cause". The author actually precedes the arc with a strip where she appears and explains that there really isn't suppose to be any political message or anything.
- In an early appearance of Melna on Dominic Deegan, Oracle for Hire, Luna gushes about how much she loves Dominic and would be nothing without him, and Melna is about ready to kill her. Of course, in this case, Dominic saved Luna from suicide and gave her some confidence. Melna's opinion is also justified as she is an Orc, and while many orcs are quite civil, most seem to be horrible brutes who treat women as property (Melna's parents were killed and she was raped because of this), a female orc is LITERALLY nothing without a husband or father and are killed as useless.
- The Japanese Beetle has the New Order of Women, a fusion of the real NOW and the NWO - literally, since the members were all combinations of feminists and wrestlers, like "Hollywood" Dworkin. In their initial appearance, they attempt to put Die-Agra, a "male potence cure", in the city's water supply.
- Space Moose brutally parodies some of the University of Alberta's organizations with this trope. He then faced down expulsion, fines, and boundless criticism for his "Take Back the Night" Space Moose strips.
- Violet Oaks, the titular character of Coming Up Violet, has a run in with this trope when she inedvertently causes a social trend of girls radomly giving boys wedgies after giving one to resident pretty boy. This inevitably leads to them discovering the true meaning of feminism.
- Torio has the overwhelmingly straw M'Kystral, who's a feminist, a vegan, an atheist, and a political activist. She really only mellows a bit when compared to her friends in said communities.
- Vespavenger from Questionable Content commits somewhat indiscriminate violence against men who wronged their intimate partners.
- Probably a subversion, as when challenged with the accusation operating under a Double Standard she admits she finds the idea of a male vigilante who goes around beating up unfaithful women to be really hot.
- Also, to a much lesser extent and without the man-hating, Penelope. Also arguably a subversion, because she's not
a cunt obnoxious and unpleasant about it
- Precocious: Suzette, who more often than not proves to be an easily agitated womyn who always seems to have a speech ready. Particularly noticeable in the earlier strips.
- Talia/Jen in Geebas On Parade and Jen in The Devil's Panties. Interestingly they are also Author Avatars so whether Jenny Breeden is poking fun at herself, feminism, perceptions of feminism or any given combination therof is a matter of conjecture,
Western Animation
- Beavis And Butthead get maced by some of these after the dimwitted duo misinterpret (as only they can) a speech at a feminism rally as a come-on line.
- Futurama gets in a quick shot in one episode; after Old Man Waterfall (a bisexual Satanic polygamist hillbilly lawyer) dies under the foot of the MobileOppression Palace, his granddaughter loudly proclaims him (in a fake female voice) "another victim of the malecentric male-ocracy!" She returned for more throughout the fourth movie before her long overdue demise.
- It wouldn't be surprising if 'she' was either a cross-dresser or a transsexual.
- Also the Femputer in the episode "Amazon Women In The Mood".
- Half the plot of The Movie Into the Wild Green Yonder focuses on a group of these crossed with hippies. While Frieda Waterfall is an over-the-top caricature (all the Waterfalls are leftist stereotypes taken to ludicrous extremes) she and her cause are ultimately sympathetic, and Frieda herself had other quirks to her personality, such as a fondness for
mega-phones mega-fems.
- All the Waterfalls (There's 5 of them) seen in Futurama are voiced by the same (male) voice actor.
- The Power Puff Girls had Femme Fatale, a man-hating criminal who only stole Susan B. Anthony coins and convinced the girls to not help men and not arrest her because she was a woman. Her flawed logic was countered by the more mainstream equality-based feminism of Sara Bellum and Miss Keane who convinced them otherwise. Not helping Femme Fatale was the fact that women were also hurt by her actions and that she didn't even know who Susan B. Anthony was.
- Yin Yang Yo has Saranoia, who is an unstable misandrist sorceress and wants to exterminate Yang but likes Yin. Her hatred seems to be based on her feelings towards her own brother, Mark, she indicates she was The Un Favourite growing up. She has a tendency to call Yang Mark.
- Parodied in The Venture Brothers when a parody of the Scooby Gang (the originals, not Buffy and pals) show up in the episode "Viva Los Muertos!" Parody-Velma is constantly spouting this talk, going so far as to actually tell Parody-Daphne that men are "walking abortions". Of course, Parody-Fred is a sociopathic gang leader in the Manson mold, Parody-Daphne was kidnapped 30 years ago and is so stupid she still thinks Parody-Fred is going to take her to visit her parents, and Parody-Shaggy is a murderous lunatic who needs to take his "Groovy treats" to make the dog stop telling him to kill everyone. Velma gets off light, comparatively.
- Velma's talk in that episode isn't original Straw Feminism; they're nearly direct quotes from the "S.C.U.M. Manifesto". The four members of the mock Scooby Gang are modeled after specific (crazy) people from the 60's and 70's: "Ted" is a mix of Ted Bundy and Charles Manson, "Sonny" is David Berkowitz (aka the Son of Sam), "Patty" is Patty Hearst, and "Val" is Valerie Solanas.
- Despite being the source of the opening quote for this page, Chilly Beach's April June is mostly a parody of this misunderstanding of feminism.
- An episode of Justice League had a rogue Amazon taking her people's views of "Man's World" to its logical extreme by developing a plague that will wipe out every creature with a Y chromosome. It's eventually learned that she's not really an Amazon (just a regular human girl granted haven and raised by the Amazons), and her deep hatred of men stemmed from the military coup that drove her from her homeland and washed her up on Themyscera (she balked after learning a man sacrificed his life to save hers, claiming the good deeds of one man couldn't salvage the crimes of males altogether). The incident, ironically, taught her fellow Amazons (who, including Wonder Woman, had displayed tendencies towards Straw Feminism themselves up to this point) to not too soundly preach the inferiorities of men and their own superiority.
- This trope is noted when Hawkgirl tells Wonder Woman "don't knock it 'till you've tried it".
- Family Guy used this in an episode where Peter is forced into sensitivity training... He was so trained that he himself did a feminism equivalent of the Heel Face Turn and became an extremely fluffy combination of this and a cookie baking, bridge playing young biddy that blames all the ills on men.
- One-shot Straw Feminist character Gloria Ironbox implies that Lois's choice to be a wife and stay-at-home mother is the reason Peter doesn't respect women. And what does Lois do? She beats the shit out of her.
- Especially funny if you realize that Gloria Ironbox is voiced by Candice Bergen, who played Murphy Brown, a non-straw feminist.
- Averted in the Simpsons episode "Homer Badman". The character of Ashley Grant (who falsely accuses Homer of sexual harassment) initially appears to be one of these, but by the end of the episode she concedes that she jumped to the wrong conclusion and apologizes to Homer.
- In one episode set during Marge and Homer's schooldays in the 1970s, one of Marge's friends appears to be one of these, and encourages Marge to 'take a stand' by publicly burning her bra. Marge does so, gets caught, sent to detention, and bitterly notes that this is "the last time I make a stand."
Real Life
- Despite this being a front on the War On Straw, you will meet actual people who fit this trope from time to time. They may or may not be female. Endlessly fun to troll, but don't take that as an excuse to be rude to real feminists in hopes ye may have found a strawpersun. Please remember that, just as Noam Chomsky doesn't discredit the idea of Social Security, radical feminists do not discredit their moderate or liberal counterparts.
- In fact, feminists are painfully aware of how prevalent this Straw Trope is in Real Life. An editor for the site ifeminists.com, Carey Roberts, wrote the article "Women Lose When Feminists Bash," detailing how The Unfair Sex Double Standard pushed by extremist feminists is legally hurting men as well as the overall cause of women.
- Such a case of offending both would include a new 'Equality' bill put forward by Harriet Harman, a senior minister in the UK, which would give employers the legal right to discriminate in favour of women because in her own words 'men cannot be left to run things on their own'. She said a woman should always occupy one of the top two posts in government to represent female voters (such being impossible from a man apparently). Even worse straw feminists mocked those who criticised the plans as being secretly misogynistic, even though the problem was not a woman in the top job, or even all the jobs in government (or that a mix may well be preferable), but that such should be a requirement regardless of the qualities of any of the candidates.
- Not strictly true. Harman has put forward an Equality Bill under which employers would have the right to discriminate in favour of women and minorities in situations where qualifications are otherwise equal. Harman also said that "men cannot be left to run things on their own." However, the two stories were separate and unrelated.
- Of course, because vocal sexism and legal sexism obviously have nothing to do with each other.
- Andrea Dworkin's become something of a mascot for the "extreme-minded" feminist in the eyes of the public, through statements she's made in her varied works and commentaries. For example, she once said that "the difference between seduction and rape is that during seduction the rapist sometimes buys a bottle of wine" ... which was probably an attempt at Black Comedy, but doesn't reflect well on her—especially since she's also blamed everything from war to crime to slavery to high taxes on the penis.
- In any case, Andrea Dworkin was arguably less radical than her colleague, John Stoltenberg. Ayup, no less than a male RL Straw Feminist who believes all male sexual desire to be objectifying and misogynistic. Refusing To Be A Man arguably stands as his manifesto. Incidentally, that there are a number of male feminists like John Stoltenberg is a major difference between Straw and Real Feminists.
- She really does seem to be as insane as imagined, according to an anthology of various academics writing about cloning just after Dolly the Sheep. You've got the standards: Richard Dawkins talking about why religious people's opinions on cloning are wrong, Stephen Jay Gould talking about how evolutionary psychology is wrong, and then this gem from Dworkin where she rambles for two pages about her cat that died, which then jumped to a complete non-sequitur then to an assertion that men will use cloning to clone women, thus completely controlling them. Nevermind that this doesn't make any goddam sense, nor that Dworkin doesn't argue for the position that all men are part of a monolithic hive-mind whose sole purpose is the crushing of female creativity—she takes that as a self-evident foundation for all her other beliefs.
- These kids seem to forget that the SCUM Manifesto is a Postmodern work, and thus thoroughly tongue-in-cheek; everything Po Mo is.
- That is rather misleading. Valerie Solanas did not explictly claim the S.C.U.M. Manifesto to be hyperbolic Postmodern satire until roughly 10 years after its original publication and her attempt to assassinate Andy Warhol and other members of The Factory. At that time, she was diagnosed as a violent paranoid schizophrenic. There was considerable speculation by those who had close contact with her that the attempt on Warhol and others was an attempt to garner fame, to assist in having her "pornographic" misandrist play Up Your Ass produced; and her diagnosis an attempt at an insanity plea. Her improvised dialog in Warhol's movie I, A Man veers well into misandrist radical-fringe feminism.
- Speaking of Po Mo... in an article about postmodernism and academic dishonesty, Richard Dawkins mentions a feminist author (Luce Irigaray) who claimed physicists couldn't figure out "fluid" systems because "fluidity" is a female characteristic, but could figure out "rigid" systems because they were connected to the "erectile nature" of the masculine gender. I wish I was making this up. And yes, they have figured out "fluid" systems.
- A feminist who insists that women should choose to be lesbians as a political act would surely be a laughable straw-woman 99% of the time. Unfortunately, not always.
- Not so much a laughable straw-woman as an outdated idea. Political lesbianism used to be more common, a long time ago.
- In 2006 Spain's Instituto de la Mujer published the 463 pages study La diferencia sexual en el analisis de los videojuegos ("Sexual difference in the analysis of videogames"), a list of sexist products in the videogame industry. Among the examples, Pokemon, TheSims, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Mario Kart and Age Of Empires II.
- They even claim the characterless (except for a few spectators that are hardly even visible), plotless simulator Gran Turismo is sexist/macho because it is technically not against the rules to bump other cars (it is not encouraged, though, in the least) and because the only way to climb the ladder is through winning. Wow.
- Then there's the eroge ban in Japan, thanks to straw feminists. Even though it was caused by a really stupid game Rapelay , the crazy idiots decided to take out the WHOLE DAMNED INDUSTRY, and petitioned the EOCS to ban this huge listof genres. The group is trying the have THE UN force Japan to out law all sexually explicit artwork and are apparently succeeding.
- The group in question is EQUALITY NOW - at least, they're the only known 'feminist' organization opposing eroge. Some of what they're upset about is content that is offensive to the average fan (lolicon, guro, et cetera), but they also appear to be annoyed about stereotyped presentations of women in general
- Equality Now's antics can be regarding Rapelay and its crusade against japanese art in general can be seen here, here, and here, notice how they use the word "rape simulator" like it's Jack Thompson calling GTA a "murder simulator" over and over again...but unlike Thompy there, Equality Now went as far as citing comments from otaku-centric sites like Sankaku as "evidence" that they need to ban FOREIGN COUNTRIES from making art aimed at their own citizens.
- So they make Jack Thomson look sane?!
- In 1993, a group of radical feminist professors and students at the University of Maryland posted flyers around the College Park campus which featured names of a number of male students, chosen randomly from the student directory, with the heading "NOTICE: THESE MEN ARE POTENTIAL RAPISTS". When threatened with disciplinary action and defamation lawsuits, the students claimed that it was a protest intended to draw attention to the issue of rape on campus, and their intended message was not that those particular students were rapists, but that all men were "potential" rapists. Similar incidents, but less high-profile have taken place at other schools around the US, some involving photos of male students as well as names.
- Allecto's "feminist" criticism of Firefly. Dear God, is this woman scary.
- Mary Daly, who stated "If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males." Daly later went the Full Blake, writing in a nigh-incomprehesible yet beautiful-in-its-way language of her own devising, e.g., this excerpt from Gyn/Ecology:
- Did... did she just compare transexualism with necrophillia? Holy shit, I never even really gave much thought or support to transgendered rights and that still crosses the Moral Event Horizon to me.
- Behold, FandomWank provides us with the Ginmar Saga!
- From Encyclopedia Dramatica: if the Biting Beaver saga is to be minimally believed... wow. Anybody has more info?
- Normally i wouldnt trust complete paragraphs from that site, but the pics they have look legit. That woman is the real deal, a modern Valerie Solanas, and she is a mom..
- Every year at my old high school, this one weird lady will come and speak to our school, mostly to the girls though. She warned us heavily that we must never trust boys. "Don't let them drive you home, don't go to parties with them, don't go out on dates, don't be friends with them, don't even sit by them at lunch!" if I remember correctly. My brother ended up joking with my cousin (and his best friend/female self) that he was going to rape her if she ever even blinked.
- Either sadly or amusingly depending on one's perspective, that attitude is also common among some people who hate feminists like they hate painful genital disfigurement - the Straw Mens Rights Advocate that argues you shouldn't blame poor men for giving in to their "natural impulses" if women "send them mixed sigals" by, like, sitting by them at lunch. Men are beasts and women are witches... Guess they just hate everybody.
- UK newspaper "The Daily Mail" is very fond of portraying all feminists in this way, even when what they are saying is actually completely legitimate.
- There was a fairly effective feminist push for laws making the existence of porn a violation of women's rights in the 1980s, lead by Catharine MacKinnon. This failed in the US after the laws were found to violate the First Amendment, but succeeded in Canada where the law exists to this day. Not only that, but the Canadian law was famously used against Bad Attitude magazine, a lesbian S&M magazine created by lesbians for lesbians, and the feminists who campaigned for the law say this falls within what they intended it to be used for.
- These ladies qualify.
- The example from the top: "... our mission is only half-done: we still haven't prevented men from doing those things!" seems to be in full swing in Sweden, where the Feminists are their own political party. They enacted Affirmative Action in their universities because they felt that women were underrepresented in certain fields of study. Now that women make up 60% of total Swedish university population and the Affirmative Action laws are working in favor of underrepresented men, the Affirmative Action laws have been abolished.
- Not so at all. Feminists have gotten a horrible reputation in Sweden in the past five years, because of statements made by a very vocal, buet ceratinly not representative radical feminst ''group''. The femnist party was actually and attmapt to bring all sorts of femnist branches together, but the aforementioned statements along with the fact that the best known leader of this party was a radical feministput in in the strawman - pigeonhole. While the recent educational debate has indeed worked in the women's favour, there has also been talk about reforming the entire educational system to suit boys better according to a biologist notion that the classical way of education doesn't work with their brains
- Feminist comic blogs tend to be lousy with these types. Apparently, a female character showing any skin below the neck is grounds for burning the artist at the stake.
- Wait, WHAT? It's much closer to the truth to say that any comic blogger, male or female, who mentions they find a piece of art to be sexist or skeezy will have their comment board filled with accusations that they're pro-censorship, anti-male Dworkinites who hate comics, life, and puppies.
Other
- A substantial number of the jokes in "lad mags" like MAXIM, FHM, Stuff, etc. come at the expense of these strawmen.
- Ahem, strawpersons.
- Cough, strawpersuns.
- Exactly. Strawfolk are not persons, they are mockups, parodic representations of a person. Walking stereotypes, whether or not a former person is inside the act. A strawpersun is as real, when all is said and done, as the buildings in the mockup of Rock Ridge!!
- Stand-up comics often mock this. "Ladies, when a guy holds the door open for you, scream that he's a sexist pig. This will really improve his opinion of women."
- The "Aristasia" concept (Google is your friend) is a (relatively benign) combination of this, Lady Land, Daydream Believer (with regards to a Le Guin-esque SFF mythos), Nostalgia Filter, and an isolationist rendering of Born In The Wrong Century. Girls involved with this are sometimes associated with S&M, which they don't much like.
Web Original
- You do NOT want to get Linkara started on this trope. He absolutely HATES it. Maybe it's because he is a normal (equal rights) feminist (he's said it himself).
- Kitty Ledbetter from the webgame The Goat in the Grey Fedora is revealed to be one of these when Bounty discovers that she murdered her father in order to get the deeds to a salt mine, which she was going to use to spread a chemical that would paralyze men worldwide.
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