Bimbo Feminism: #BimboTok, Intersectionality, Accessibility, and Gender Performance

Gen Z is taking bimbo back. Once a word rooted in demeaning the intelligence of women who embrace traditional femininity, #BimboTok is making strides in reclaiming the word. TikTok user Chrissy Chlapecka has been leading the charge for reclamation on the app; Chlapecka calls on “girls, gays, and theys” not only to embrace the term bimbo but to redefine it completely, leaving the former misogynistic meaning behind.  

One TikTok from Chlapecka answers the question “Who is the Gen Z bimbo?” Her response: a radical leftist who is “pro-sex work, pro-Black Lives Matter, pro-LGBTQ+, pro-choice, and will ALWAYS be there for her girls, gays, and theys.” Chlapecka’s definition sheds the misogyny of the past in favor of one rooted in intersectional feminist ideology. That aforementioned misogynistic definition now typically refers to women, often blonde, who have traditional feminine bodies: large breasts, wide hips, big hair, and clothing that makes such bodies visible. Some women who have been dubbed as “bimbos” in the misogynistic likes are Dolly Parton, Pamela Anderson, and Paris Hilton, among others (although the term originated as a unisex term to describe unintelligent people, it was largely co-opted by tabloid magazines, which presented the more modern misogynistic definition). The imagery is clear and shrouded in hot-pink. BimboTok’s creators, like Chlapecka, present a satirized performance of hyper-femininity in order to reclaim “bimbo.” On BimboTok, creators lean into the performative aspect literally. Judith Butler famously argues in “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution” that, to be female is, according to that distinction, a facticity which has no meaning, but to be a woman is to have become a woman, to compel the body to conform to a historical idea of 'woman,' to induce the body to become a cultural sign, to materialize oneself in obedience to a historically delimited possibility, and to do this as a sustained and repeated corporeal project.
In other words, womanhood comes from a sort of “performance”: an investment in behavior and actions in line with what is traditionally (and often misogynistically) defined as “feminine.” On BimboTok, this performance is heightened satirically. The creators on BimboTok present an exaggerated performance of hyper-femininity; they lean into misogynistic expectations, reappropriate the expectations and manage to derive personal pleasure in doing so, and yet vocally denounce patriarchy all the while. 

Bimbo isn’t always skin-deep. #BimboTok is making strides in making feminist theory and ideology accessible to young people. Much of traditional feminist theory is entrenched in dense, academic language, making it inaccessible and difficult to understand. By contrast, Chlapecka manages to present complicated intersectional feminist and anti-capitalist ideologies in just 15 and 60-second videos, blending theory with humor. Feminists have long been criticized for being humorless, but Chlapecka’s bimbo feminism takes aim at this idea; bimbo feminism interrogates long-held feminist ideology, analyzing its shortfalls and attempting to be more inclusive.  

It is no surprise that bimbo feminism has fallen under harsh criticism; how can encouraging women to lean into patriarchal imagery of hyper-femininity coincide with the push for gender equality? Radical feminists like Catherine MacKinnon have long argued that female sexual pleasure is squandered under patriarchy. MacKinnon argues in “Sexuality, Pornography, and Method: ‘Pleasure under Patriarchy’” that female sexual pleasure is somewhat impossible under patriarchy, that when contending with compulsory heterosexuality, misogynistic pornography, and the male gaze, the sexual woman is confronted by a sexual culture defined by male pleasure. MacKinnon writes:

A theory of sexuality becomes feminist to the extent it treats sexuality as a social construct of male power: defined by men, forced on women, and constitutive in the meaning of gender. Such an approach centers feminism on the perspective of the subordination of women to men as it identifies sex-that is, the sexuality of dominance and submission-as crucial, as a fundamental, as on some level definitive, in that process. Feminist theory becomes a project of analyzing that situation in order to face it for what it is, in order to change it.

Bimbo feminism lies in opposition to this theory, rather than thinking about sexuality as a form of subordination, it becomes an axis of personal power. Another proponent of BimboTok, Griffin Maxwell Brooks, claims that “The only requirement for bimbofication is that you embrace and reclaim your body.” Rather than positing sexuality as the oppressor, the bimbo’s performance of hyper-femininity seeks to make light of the double-standards of cultural beliefs relating to sexual women. BimboTok embraces duality; women can be intelligent and attractive, or attractive and “unintelligent” according to patriarchy (Chlapecka often focuses on her disinterest in understanding and participating in a capitalist economy), a bimbo can be someone who embraces traditional femininity while dismantling misogyny. 

One of the most common criticisms of any feminism rooted in sex-positivity is the idea that sex-positive feminism simply repackages patriarchy by appealing to the male gaze and upholding a male/dominant: female/submissive dynamic. If a woman is enjoying performing her gender, then she is enjoying patriarchy. BimboTok says this isn’t true. Chlapecka says in one video: “I don’t do this for the misogynistic male gaze, I do it for my gaze. And damn, my tits look good!” BimboTok remains conscious of the damaging effect of the male gaze, asking self-identified bimbos, thembos, and himbos alike to personally decide the ways in which they participate in gender performance, capitalism, and sex. 

The critique that this form of feminism appeals to the male gaze is an idea that begs for further discussion and study. Consider the fact that when Laura Mulvey established the idea of the misogynistic male gaze in “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” her argument centers on, firstly, a form of feminism that is very much white-centric, but secondly, on film and cinema. The internet has allowed for a radical reconstruction of the way we view women on screens; where in the past cinema and media was controlled by patriarchy, platforms like YouTube and TikTok focus on user-generated content, putting women in the “driver’s seat” through the ability to produce and share autonomous content. So this issue of the male gaze is complicated by TikTok and the like, without a third-party producer (such as directors, screenwriters, film distributors) who enforce patriarchy by instating it in media, women can now self-produce content for their own enjoyment and consumption. Without the third party producer, that leaves objectification up to the viewer; if a man perceives a TikTok creator to be a sexual object, that is on them. BimboTok is proudly saying, in wispy voices, “your perception is not my problem.”  

The #BimboTok conversation is one that is not over, one that runs much deeper than some have assumed. Perhaps the pushback against #BimboTok is revealing remnants of long-held internalized misogyny in self-identified feminists. Our movement has fought long and hard to legitimize women as intelligent, autonomous beings, and investment in hyper-femininity and “unintelligence” feels like a threat to that work. Perhaps to its critics, bimbo feminism is altogether much too silly, too lacking in “serious” feminist discussion to be considered a legitimate form of feminist ideology. I argue, rather, that BimboTok is very quickly serving to present intersectional feminism and anti-capitalism to the masses in a way that is much more accessible than feminists of the past.