Read Part 1 about how scarcity mindsets around dating and marriage were and are perpetrated to young women.
‘Opting Out’ of Feminism, 2014 Style
Going back in time to the 2000s and 2010s, pre-#MeToo and the election of Donald Trump, feminism was relatively “unpopular” in the U.S. This unpopularity was fueled by right-wing attacks and propaganda, lack of public discourse and leadership in the feminism movement, racism and exclusion of women of color, and complacency. As the propaganda went, American women who embraced feminism, would not only face a shallow dating pool and shriveled eggs, but they might become a lesbian living in a duplex.
Only about a quarter of American women identified as feminists (61% in 2024). Even democratic women seemed relatively unconcerned with feminism (some antifeminists still attacked it). Many, though sympathetic to feminist ‘causes’, felt that they lived in a post-feminist era (or that feminism was obsolete because social equality between genders has been achieved). Many ignored warning signs of increasing attacks on reproductive rights, persistent under-representation of women in STEM, racial violence, and controlling of women’s sexuality. Furthermore, marriage equality for same-sex couples and LGBTQ+ rights were relatively taboo and not considered “an important issue” for many democratic women. Women appeared to be ‘opting out” of feminism. Some women worried about being labelled as “man-haters” or “militants”, probably due to anti-feminist propaganda.
“Bad Feminist” destabilizing post-feminism
Bad Feminist (2014) helped to spark some discourse around intersectional feminism. Author Roxane Gay in Bad Feminist provides another hypothesis for women who don’t identify as feminist. They didn’t feel like they fit the feminist “mold”. These women are not necessarily post-feminist or anti-feminist but experience a sense of “unworthiness” they feel disqualifies them from identifying as a feminist. The book garnered some mixed reviews at the time but was extremely popular and was a New York Time’s Best Seller. In a recent interview about the book’s 10th anniversary re-release, Gay confirms the book’s overarching theme of embracing human flaws within feminism: "I think a lot of us have thought, 'Oh, I'm not good enough' or 'I'm not consistent enough' or 'I'm not militant enough to be a feminist,' and that's simply not true," Gay adds. "We're all human and we're all doing the best we can."
The premise of Bad Feminism seems to be that “bad feminists” might, for example, unironically enjoy the color pink, sing along to violent rap music, shave, play dumb with repairmen, or perform certain sexual acts with men while still advocating for women’s control over their own bodies, freedom from assault, and equal recognition for their work. Gay argues that feminism had become a stereotype of behaviors and materials that women supposedly should denounce and deny themselves to be “included” in the feminist movement. However, the strongest and most impactful aspects of the book are its exploration of race in popular media. Gay explores the normalization of violent language, rape culture, and delineates heteronormative narratives and abuse dynamics perpetuated in popular media. Gay is critiquing white feminism, performative feminism, and to an extent choice feminism. Bad Feminist’s biggest victory is destabilizing the 2010s “post-feminist” narrative and highlighting the dismissal of black women’s experiences in mainstream feminist movements. Gay breaks down the importance of acknowledging privilege and plainly states that:
Such willful ignorance, such willful disinterest in incorporating the issues and concerns of black women into the mainstream feminist project, makes me disinclined to own the feminist label until it embraces people like me. p. 308.
She further explores the cognitive dissonance that occurs when we supposedly “enjoy” problematic materials (books like Fifty Shades of Grey or violent rap music). While Gay is facetious at times, these arguments are troubling and suggest how easily we can internalize misogyny which can sabotage our best intentions. They also suggest that most women may be ill-equipped to critique and distinguish racist, sexist or misogynistic tropes in popular culture, making it more difficult for women to embrace an inclusive feminism. Specifically, she experiences internal discord over her enjoyment of the Black comedian Richard Pryor, who while critiquing white culture, also made rape jokes. These struggles are emblematic of internal anxiety and conflict between racial and gendered identities, as fear being branded as “disloyal” to their race or gender.
This concept of pleasure, happiness, and internal conflicts over pursuing and achieving it are further explored in regard to romantic relationships.
Happiness Narratives
Gay points to, but does not touch, certain third rails which have supposedly engendered such vicious hatred towards feminism. During the chapter about declining reproductive rights for women, she mentions “I cannot help but think of the Greek play Lysistrata” (p276) (a play about an infamous sex strike led by women to end war which is now gaining some interest) but does not follow up on this sentence. She avoids direct suggestions that women might consider foregoing sexual or romantic relationships with men, despite emphasizing the pervasiveness of rape culture and toxic masculinity in other chapters. At the end of the book, she notes that “Despite what people think based on my opinion writing, I very much like men. They’re interesting to me, and I mostly wish they would be better about how they treat women so I wouldn’t have to call them out so often. And still, I put up with nonsense from unsuitable men even though I know better and can do better” (315-316). Gay exclusively discusses her romantic and dating relationships with men throughout the book. She presents an unsettling internal conflict about being single, loneliness, and her own awareness of violence and inequality engendered in patriarchal culture.
In patriarchal/racist culture, “happiness” is obtained almost entirely through fairy-tale heterosexual narratives of meet-cutes, dating, engagement, marriage, property/pet ownership, and children. Such cultural narratives are so highly conditioned and inescapable, that it is almost impossible to fully consider the multiple means and routes to happiness than having a long-term romantic partner of the opposite sex. Most cultural narratives, portray those (especially women) without a long-term romantic partner as being “secretly” unhappy/discontent despite any proclamations of contentment they proffer. Furthermore, there is no exploration of what happiness can actually mean. In the media, happiness equals love/affection/attention from an exclusive romantic partner. However, this fails to consider other sources including autonomy, creative expression, independence, or social connection. Rarely are people encouraged to think about what would make them “happy”. Even more perversely, say if a single character has all of these things, they cannot possibly be “completely” happy because they are missing that “special someone” to share things with.
In Bad Feminist Gay grapples with misguided “advice” proffered to women to achieve “happiness” in an intensely patriarchal culture that values certain ideals of beauty and skin tone and thinness. Gay often presents her internal conflicts as the recipient of misguided attempts from her parents to help her achieve the body type that is supposedly a pre-requisite for “happiness” (embodied by the hope that she could be “Mrs. America”). She also details her own experiences dating men who abuse, violate, and police her.
Given this confusion, messiness, and negative stereotyping of feminism, marriage, and romantic partnership might be offered as a way to “insulate” women from verbal or physical assault. And the fear that single women who embrace feminism might be negatively stereotyped and never achieve a man’s love can be very much perpetuated by the Internet, books, popular culture, or even more insidiously by well-intentioned friends and family. This is a powerful form a fear mongering that can frighten even the most committed feminist. At the end of the book, Gay acknowledges that she too, fears being single:
I worry about dying alone, unmarried and childless, because I spent so much time pursuing my career and accumulating degrees. This kind of thinking keeps me up at night, but I pretend it doesn’t because I am supposed to be evolved. My success, such as it is, is supposed to be enough if I’m a good feminist. It is not enough. It is not even close (316).
In the penultimate chapter of her book, she confirms this fear that women might feel pressure to “opt out” of feminism because of vicious online attacks directed towards women espousing feminism. She admits that the term “feminist” has been used as an insult towards her both online and from men she has dated. She implies that (white) corporate women may feel pressure or incentive to reject feminism and identifies 2000s-era white feminist bloggers as being the primary gatekeepers of feminism who deliberately downplay black women’s experiences. This epitomizes the fragmented, and oftentimes exclusionary, post-feminist era messaging that was so confusing and discouraging to women, particularly women of color, and may have incentivized them to “opt-out”.
The book “Bad Feminist” became an Internet phenomenon.
Though some have considered the book’s intent to be subverting exclusivity in academic feminist scholarship, the book’s overly casual tone and over-emphasis on pop culture provides minimal grounding in feminist scholarship. The lack of a framework which clearly defines “bad” feminism, could cause readers to inadvertently misconstrue the term “bad feminist” as lending some sort of “immunity” from any sort of critique, namely for privileged white women who co-opt feminism for personal gain. This would be especially evident on social media platforms in which young, white college woman can “meme” the book holding its pink cover which can be performative.
Other buzzy articles appeared such as “Am I a Bad Feminist If I Want the Guy to Pay on a First Date?” (Glamour, 2016): “Makeup, Beauty, And Being A “Bad Feminist”? (Literally, Darling” 2016); My boyfriend wants to pay my expenses. Am I a bad feminist if I let him? (2025, Vox) in which feminism is still centered around heterosexual dating. Often, these articles control “bad feminism” into some sort of ‘pass’ to conform to heterosexual dating and beauty norms while doing minimal work to critique the source of these ‘norms’.
Bad Feminism and “Lean In”
In the final chapter, Gay, while noting Sandberg’s privileged position, tepidly discusses her take on Lean In:
Sandberg’s life is so absurd a fairy tale, I began to think of Lean In as a snow globe, where a lovely little tableau was being nicely preserved for my delectation and irritation. I would not be so bold as to suggest Sandberg has it all, but I need to believe she is pretty damn close to whatever “having it all” might look like. Common sense dictates that it is not realistic to assume anyone could achieve Sandberg’s successes simply by “leaning in” and working harder—but that doesn’t mean Sandberg has nothing to offer, or that Lean In should be summarily dismissed. […] It would have been useful if Sandberg offered realistic advice about career management for women who are dealing with such circumstances. It would also be useful if we had flying cars. Assuming Sandberg’s advice is completely useless for working-class women is just as shortsighted as claiming her advice needs to be completely applicable to all women. And let’s be frank: if Sandberg chose to offer career advice for working-class women, a group she clearly knows little about, she would have been just as harshly criticized for overstepping her bounds. (312-313)
More recently, there have been further revelations about Sandberg’s problematic behavior at Facebook, though this was not as obvious in 2014. However, if one were to acknowledge the inherent exploitation and imperialistic motives of Facebook, then any “female” leader in such a company could never be taken seriously as a feminist leader/icon. Facebook’s misogyny, sexism, imperialism, and racism on its platform and within its work culture were on-going and notoriously immortalized in the 2010 film The Social Network. Such a “leader” will be complicit in upholding this exploitative and imperialistic structure. Similar to my note on women “leaders” in ethically problematic companies like ExxonMobil, some women cannot be feminist icons because they are perpetuating horribly corrupt systems of exploitation and global destruction that also primarily target people of color. Yes, people are “messy and complicated” but a line for “bad feminism” needs to be drawn somewhere.
Bad Feminist brought intersectional feminism into public discourse, at a time when it was badly needed. Gay’s book captured internal struggles and cognitive dissonance women experienced in the era. It particularly appealed to college-aged women and was often added to reading lists for women in college. Roxane Gay even recently appeared on The Late Show with Steven Colbert promoting Bad Feminist, indicating a certain cultural relevance that permeates today.
While certainly not centering heterosexual marriage as the end all be all and exposing the violence of patriarchal culture, the book still presents an unsettling image of singledom as an obstacle to achieving happiness. Furthermore, the term “bad feminist” seemed to take a life of its own, and implied that it’s okay to ‘contort’ our feminist principals to predominant narratives.