It’s “confess your unpopular opinion” time at Heat Street: I love Kim Kardashian.
My colleague, Jillian Melchior, obviously doesn’t feel the same way, but I’ve been a fan of the reality diva since she was just a baby, in Juicy Couture tracksuits she’d gotten second-hand as a reward for organizing Paris Hilton’s closet.
Sure, she’s cheap and vapid, over-dramatic and over-exposed (I’ve seen more of her derriere than I’ve seen of my own), but from a purely business perspective, there’s a lot to learn from someone who took a sex tape with a C-list hip hop star and turned it into a multi-national, multi-media, multimillion-dollar empire.
A lot of the credit goes to her mother, Kris Jenner, the self-declared “Momager” of the Kardashian-Jenner clan. Jenner’s endless struggle to keep her family relevant has developed in her daughters a revolutionary work ethic—even if the job they work at is mostly self-promotion. But while Kim’s grandparents, Robert Kardashian’s immigrant family, probably didn’t envision the American dream being played out on E! Network television, and on Vivid Entertainment’s web servers, the Jenner-Kardashian story is rags-to-riches epic, nonetheless.
This week, Kim penned an essay for her website explaining that, despite being an independent woman who makes her own money, dictates her own schedule, creates her own opportunities and achieves her own, self-created goals, she doesn’t call herself a feminist—largely because she eschews labels.
Thank goodness.
This, of course, isn’t a new statement for Kim, who, along with her sisters, seems to use the “I don’t like labels” excuse every time she’s confronted with the question. That’s probably because the word “feminist” is itself a loaded term, and one that modern women (and men, for that matter) rightfully associate with a very specific type of person.
“Feminism” evolved from its origins as a movement for equality and opportunity for women, to a political ideology that demands absolute fealty to a set of policy ideas closely associated with the Democratic party. “Feminists” have become agitators, pushing for bigger, more Patriarchal government programs, a massive expansion of the welfare state, and “progressive” approaches to political correctness. There’s no support for individual choice, just a demand that women vote—and believe—in lockstep.
Ask students on any college campus their impression of “feminism” and they’d likely point you to a group of students who are on the front lines of creating “safe spaces” from their peers, demanding speech codes and yes, even shaming women like Kim Kardashian, who embrace their sexuality and ascribe to more traditional “gender norms.”
Kim is, for better or worse, an ambassador to a demographic that consumes very little political media. And as someone who stands in staunch opposition to radical feminism, her rejection of the now sullied label is a step in the right direction.
What Kim is doing is attempting to define feminism more broadly, in a more modern sense (even if she might not know she’s doing it), by incorporating its original ideas, sans the stigma that comes with a modern, official embrace of the women’s rights movement.
That said, I’m not fully convinced she is making a subtle political statement—just that she’s aware that the public relations fallout from labeling oneself a feminist is more dramatic than the laudatory response one might get for clothing one-self in the actual term. After all, Kim and her mother are savvy businesswomen, and know how to manipulate the public in such a way as to make themselves as relevant as possible.
In the end, Kim is doing her own thing and making her own choices, pursuing the path that she wants to pursue, and often creating opportunities where there are none. She’s blazed a new, if terrifying, trail into the future of modern media, and has led the way for women in using digital platforms to expand their reach. She’s a pioneer who shares her most intimate moments with a huge audience, and she does it while generally encouraging other women to do the same (unless they are, occasionally, Amber Rose).
So in the end, she’s a feminist, even if she doesn’t like the name—just like most of us in the post-bra burning world.
