Defining Designer Feminism

“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open.”  - Frank Zappa

This blog coined the phrase ‘designer feminist’ and a number of people have questioned its actual meaning. 

Let me explain…

The phrase was created to refer to certain self appointed 'elite' of third wave feminists that choose to focus on issues that are relatively unimportant on the landscape of feminist struggle, but are nonetheless worthy of favourable media publicity that can be later harnessed for the benefit of the activist(s) in question. 

Designer feminists tend to be drawn from relatively privileged backgrounds and are very well educated and see themselves as a moral template that should be followed by everyone else without question.

“….At an event here Object members were present, I voiced my concerns about university educated women essentially telling other – often working class women – that stripping (for example) is wrong. This didn’t go down particularly well and I felt like I was being lectured….”  See the full article here.

Designer feminists obsess about female exploitation, but choose lap dancing clubs as their battleground and ignore anything that isn’t media friendly, such as the hundreds of office cleaners that almost certainly are exploited on a daily basis. The issue here is that there is no public outrage or concern about office cleaners, they are invisible and how many of them clean floors and tidy the offices of Object activists?

Designer feminists tackle female genital mutilation as long as it’s a labioplasty undertaken in a clinic and choose to ignore the plight of close on 2000 girls a year who are mutilated by and in the presence of other women.

Designer feminists choose safe targets such as lapdancing clubs that they accuse being full of trafficked sex slaves and ignore the brothels in every town and city that are full of trafficked people. Its easier to take on a club with a law abiding owner than a gangster run brothel.

Designer feminists probably think that Elizabeth Cady Stanton is an expensive knitwear designer and therefore do not know that she said...

‘Human beings lose their logic in their vindictiveness’. 

'Were you paid by your pimps?' - Object activist (and don't we just know who it was) to pro stripper speaker.

'Woman will always be dependent until she holds a purse of her own'.

So forgive me if I observe that Objects most high profile campaign so far aims to make thousands of women redundant.

Women have crucified the Mary Wollstonecrafts, the Fanny Wrights, and the George Sands of all ages. Men mock us with the fact and say we are ever cruel to each other.

Mumsnet contributor 'KristineRackabusi' referring to strippers as being 'gender traitors of the highest order....second only to prostitutes'

The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation.

Objects alliance of convenience with islamic conservatives in Tower Hamlets comes to mind here

Truth is the only safe ground to stand upon.

'....When passing this club I have been verbally abused and harassed on several occasions by men outside this club....'.

Designer feminists are opposed to the patriachy, but in reality they are no different, they practice a form of oppression that they find advantages their cause and if it means lives ruined, then so be it.

But most of all Designer Feminists are just so bourgeois.