As I was finishing my last semester of my freshman year at JMU, I was taking a class dedicated to the subject of creating a sustainable life. The professor encouraged veganism, self-love as well as feminism – well, until it came to the topic of Kim Kardashian. The professor gave numerous lectures on women empowerment and that as an identifying male, he wished his fellow man would help encourage gender equality.
I adored this class. Maybe it was the fact that a man had essentially dedicated his career to encouraging equality among the sexes and wasn’t afraid to be attacked for his “left wing radicalism” on rate my professor, but I absolutely cherished this class and having my own views encouraged, which I had often been made fun of for. As much as I had loved this class though, it opened my eye to the exception to feminism – Kim Kardashian.
At one point in the class, my professor said “You can be anything you want to be, unless you want to be Kim Kardashian, don’t be a Kardashian”.
The class roared with laughter, and as much as I would have preferred to believe he was saying this to speak up about her cultural appropriation and other problematic tendencies, I knew it wasn’t about that.
It was about her sex tape. It was always about her sex tape.
This professor who, up until this point, I had seen through rose colored glasses as a perfect and ideal individual, suddenly broke his own rule. Whether he was aware of it or not.
Personally, I never paid much mind to the end of year professor reviews that get handed out to their students. But, this time I put more effort than I ever had before. The 5×4 piece of paper was filled with my opinion that his feminism that he had deemed as seamless was in fact filled with micro aggressions. My intention wasn’t to attack him, but simply inform him that Kim Kardashian shouldn’t be the exception to his feminism and that he should stop spreading this rhetoric that she is and potentially influencing future students to believe the same thing.
When the world came together and laughed at the fact that the Kardashians were talentless individuals, they completely discredited the fact that the Kardashians are essentially an empire. They are a matriarchy of business women who became even more successful by using the revenge porn of Kim’s sex tape to create a business for themselves. I tried to form a list of my own on every successful business venture the Kardashians have jumped into, but this article would last far too long that the next season of the Kardashians may premiere before I even finish. Luckily though, Buzzfeed has done the work for me and I highly recommend checking it out if you even doubt the Kardashians in the slightest.
Our own president has been accused of sleeping with a sex worker, but at the end of the day nobody will discredit his business because of this. But this happens to the Kardashians absolutely every day for the past decade and a half.
Keeping your feminism inclusive and the micro aggressions limited,
Femme Fatale
ShoutOut! James Madison University 