​If you’ve been on Twitter lately, first of all, God bless you. That place is a hellhole. Second of all, you’ve probably been seeing the hashtags trending lately like #TransWomenAreConMen.

   A lot of those hashtags are centered around a TikTok video a woman called Lindsey Graham (no relationship to the South Carolina senator with the same name) made about someone named Paul Bixler.

   In the video Graham accuses Bixler of a few things. According to Graham, Paul Bixler was staring at her as she was changing in the women’s locker room at the gym. Graham said she had her shirt off and her bra off, and she noticed Bixler looking at her breasts.

   Speaking as a cis woman who has changed in locker rooms before, I did notice a few odd things with Graham’s story right. First of all, despite what the porn films may portray, women’s locker rooms are not steamy erotic paradises full of bi-curious naked supermodels. Women’s locker rooms usually just have a few of us middle-aged women. We take care to not show too much skin even when there are only women in the locker room. Frankly, most women are shy about being naked even in front of other women. If we’re changing into gym clothes we make sure to wrap towels around our waist before we change pants. We face the wall and move quickly to change bras. NONE of us are parading around with boobs out and honestly if I had been in the locker room while Graham was changing, I might have snuck a peak too. I have nothing but admiration for women who are confident enough about their bodies to walk proudly boobs-out in front of other women. I wish I had that poise.

   Look, everyone stares at boobs regardless of sexual orientation. This has been scientifically proven, believe it or not! (imagine the grant application that was written to fund THAT study!) Who knows why both men and women like to look at breasts. Maybe it’s a nascent reflex from infancy that associates breasts with food and warmth. Maybe, as one scientist said, women look at eachother’s breasts “for social comparison purposes.”

   Regardless, we all love looking at breasts.

   Anyway, back to Lindsay Graham’s TikTok video. Graham herself runs a far-right podcast called Patriot Barbie so yes she looks and behaves exactly how you think she does. Graham also apparently visits the gym in a full face of make-up and two pounds of false eyelashes.
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   Girl, please.

    Graham’s story starts to fall apart as soon as she describes what happened when Bixler allegedly stared at her breasts. “‘He had his back to me, but there was a mirror, so when he turned around after loading up his things, he was able to see me completely topless.”

   How the hell can someone stare at your breasts while facing away from you at the same time? There was a mirror? Bixler was watching Graham in the mirror? Or was Bixler watching Graham when Bixler “turned around.” I’m sorry, I’m having a hard time visualizing the spatial dynamics Graham is alleging here that ended up with Graham’s breasts in Bixler’s visual zone.
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   I mean, even before LibsofTikTok posted Graham’s video, this woman Graham was a piece of work. Imagine Lauren Boebert if Boebert were even more dumb than she is. That’s Lindsey Graham. The Patriot Barbie cat lady protester I mean, not the South Carolina Senator. Well, maybe the South Carolina Senator too but ANYWAY Graham (the woman) is absolutely crackers. Graham even attended a school board meeting in a cat costume to protest trans people or something. It was… dumb.

​

   Frankly it’s pretty clear that Graham has an agenda and has specifically targeted Paul Bixler. I have no doubt that Graham tried to set up Bixler at the gym. 

   Still, while it’s fun to dump on Ms. Patriot Barbie, I really can’t defend Paul Bixler here.

  Full disclosure, I’m a huge TERF. Or at least trans activists call me a TERF. I support the human rights and dignity of trans people. I also believe that trans women should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports and the erasure of women is wrong and gay women should not be emotionally blackmailed into having sex with people with penises and JK Rowling actually has some good points. I am part of the wide middle ground that many people inhabit in America when it comes to trans activism, but trans activists have said that I am “unsafe” and “literally killing trans people.”

    Yeah, that’s right. Either you support gay women being coerced into sexual situations that they hate or you’re literally killing trans people. Literally. THERE IS NO MIDDLE GROUND PEOPLE!

  And I’m gonna be clear here when I say that Paul Bixler should not be allowed in a woman’s changing room.
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   By the way, when I am saying “Paul Bixler,” I am not deadnaming Bixler. Bixler still goes by the masculine surname “Paul” and apparently suffers no dysphoria when referred to by that name by other people. Bixler also makes very little effort to try to pass as a woman. Bixler’s hair is slightly messy but not feminine, and Bixler does not seem to be concerned about passing at the gym or… anywhere really. Bixler apparently has had no voice training either and none of Bixler’s photos show that Bixler has put any work into body feminization.

​

   Bixler claims to have had bottom surgery (apparently that’s why the police in the video allowed Bixler to continue to use the ladies’ changing room) but I think that’s a lie. You have to jump through hoops and pass massive amounts of screenings to be approved for bottom surgery. Bottom surgery is very complicated under the best of circumstances. There is not only a lot of vasculature to consider but also nerve preservation so that the patient’s sexual health AND genitourinary functionality remain intact. Few surgeons are expert at bottom surgeries for FTM trans people. I sincerely doubt that any surgeon would have agreed to perform bottom surgery on a geriatric patient (Bixler transitioned at age 70), especially a geriatric patient who apparently has no wish to be femme-presenting. The capacity for serious complications and lawsuits as a result of operating on Bixler would be too great.

   The argument among trans activists is that trans women don’t owe society femininity nor do trans women need to “pass.” Cis women, nevertheless, owe trans women access to all women-only spaces even if the trans women present as men.

  If masc-presenting trans women are denied access to women-only spaces, trans women will suffer horrifying dysphoria as a result. So masc-presenting trans women must be allowed in women-only spaces.
​
  On the other hand, if women are uncomfortable and even scared of seeing a masculine-appearing person in a changing room or other places where women are naked, well…… suck it up buttercup. Don’t be a fucking TERF like that awful Harry Potter woman.

​

   ​The dysphoric feelings of someone with a penis carries more weight in our society than the fearful feelings of someone with a vagina. It is a rigid rule of the gender binary that has persisted for centuries and that trans activists insist on maintaining.
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   The vagina must always make space for the penis.

   ​Even the picture of Paul Bixler entering the woman’s changing room at the gym shows how dumb it is that Bixler insists on using women’s spaces. There would have been no danger for Bixler if Bixler had used the men’s changing room. All the men there would have just assumed Bixler was one of them, not a trans woman. Paul Bixler does not present as a feminine person.

  Someone who puts no effort into passing as a woman should not be using a female space. Period.

   Is Lindsey “Patriot Barbie” Graham a clown? Yes. Did she set up Paul Bixler? Yeah, probably. Is she harassing and stalking Paul Bixler? Yeah, probably.

    But is Paul Bixler using women’s spaces unjustifiably? Yes. Does Paul Bixler belong in women’s spaces? No, not at Bixler’s current stage of transition. Is Paul Bixler lying about having bottom surgery? Yeah, probably.

  Does Paul Bixler appear to give a damn about the comfort of women? No. Is Paul Bixler a clown too?

   Yes.

  That is why I am forced to conclude that no one looks good in the Paul Bixler controversy. It is not misogynistic to say that Graham needs to stop stalking trans people. It is not transphobic to say that Bixler needs to use men’s spaces now unless Bixler puts more effort into passing.

   And there is nothing remotely wrong in saying that both Graham and Bixler are dishonest clowns.
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   UPDATE: Someone claiming to be Paul Bixler’s son (and he seems legit so I’m gonna assume he is) says that Bixler has indeed had bottom surgery. There are documents to prove it. I posted my own response. Obviously Paul Bixler’s medical info is only Paul Bixler’s business (and Bixler’s healthcare providers) but we are all entitled to our opinions. Regardless of the surgery, however, I stand by my opinion that anyone who cannot even pass a glance test when it comes to passing as a woman should not use women-only spaces. And that if masc-presenting trans women do not feel comfortable in men’s spaces, then the burden is on cis men to accommodate them. Not cis women.

  ​Twitter is once again blowing up, and it’s blowing up because of JK Rowling. 

   Again.

  Things have been pretty tense among trans activists lately. First a parade expressing support for the pro-trans Scottish “Gender ID” bill was marred by a participant who held a “Decapitate TERFs” sign above two pro-trans-rights Scottish MPs’ heads.
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  The whole affair didn’t really send a GREAT message about trans rights, frankly. Especially when the person holding it was wearing Jeffrey Dahmer glasses and giving a creepy, cold dead stare.

   ​Then India Willoughby, a trans woman broadcaster for ITV’s Good Morning Britain, tweeted out “I’m more of a woman than JK Rowling will ever be.”

       JK Rowling responded rather icily: “Citation needed.”

     And JK Rowling had a point. When it comes to the lived female experience, Rowling has been through the mill. She is a rape survivor and was an impoverished single mom for years. She was borderline homeless and described spending her days in a cafe to keep warm with her daughter sleeping on the seat beside her. It was in this cafe that she started writing the Harry Potter books.

    India Willoughby was born in 1965 and enjoyed male privilege throughout the 70s and 80s and 90s and the early 00s before transitioning at the age of 45. She even managed to have a biological son through a nifty trick: she stuck her penis inside another woman and let that woman go through the life-risking pain of childbirth.

    That sounds so awesome! I bet JK Rowling, who is so much less the woman that India Willoughby is, wish she had the capacity to do that. Unfortunately Rowling had to do the whole pregnancy and childbirth thing HERSELF with her three children because Rowling is, you know, so much less of a woman than India Willoughby.

    Anyway the reaction to JK Rowling’s tweet was predictable. TERFs applauded her. Trans rights activists talked about how the noisy women who disagreed with be-penised people needed to shut her mouth.

     A few people noticed, however, that JK Rowling had altered India Willoughby’s tweet before re-posting the screenshot on her own account.
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TW: The commenter’s handle is upsetting.

​    As you can see, when JK Rowling screenshot India Willoughby’s tweet, Rowling took care to erase the tweet Willoughby was responding to.

    ​Here’s the thing. JK Rowling hid the original tweet India Willoughby was responding to because the original tweet was a transphobic attack on India Willoughby.

  JK Rowling did not want to use her platform to promote that transphobic tweet misgendering India Willoughby.

    Because JK Rowling is not transphobic.

    Yes, you heard me. JK Rowling is not transphobic.

   JK Rowling has never deadnamed any trans person. JK Rowling has never misgendered any trans person. JK Rowling has never promoted violence against trans people.

  JK Rowling is not transphobic. JK Rowling merely has a common sense, nuanced approach on trans rights, and she stands with the majority of people when it comes to neither wishing harm on trans people nor wishing to eradicate the concept of gender altogether regardless of cost. Natalie Jackson described it in her article on a PRRI survey about trans rights. Yet in that same survey from PRRI, we found that a considerable share of Americans held seemingly opposing views. Forty-six percent of Americans, for instance, said they both supported general nondiscrimination protections and opposed allowing transgender girls to participate in girls’ sports. Meanwhile, 37 percent supported nondiscrimination protections and opposed allowing transgender boys to participate in boys’ sports. Finally, 36 percent supported nondiscrimination protections and supported bathroom bills requiring transgender people to use the bathroom of their sex assigned at birth.

    Herein lies the danger in the trans rights’ tactic of “Do everything we say or be labeled a killer of trans kids forever.” It dishonestly tars people with justifiable hesitancies about very niche aspects of the trans experience (public bathrooms, women’s sports, lesbian preferences) when overall these same people very much support nondiscrimination policies for trans people. 

   According to the current line being repeated by trans activists, if you believe that trans people should not be discriminated against in terms of jobs and housing but you also believe that women should not be forced to compete against AMAB trans athletes in sports, you are no different then people who literally kill trans folk.

  The slightest amount of dissent from the mostly AMAB trans folk-dominated discussion brands you a TERF for eternity.

  Hell, Mark Hamill couldn’t even “like” a JK Rowling tweet on Twitter without people dogpiling him and swearing off Star Wars? This shit is getting ridiculous.
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   You can respect the rights and dignity of trans people and ALSO put firm barriers when the rights of trans people start to infringe on the rights of women.

   That is where JK Rowling and many, many women like her stand.

   That is why JK Rowling refused to platform a transphobic attack against India Willoughby and- at the same time- stood against Willoughby when Willoughby attacked Rowling.

   Rowling does not want to dehumanize trans people, and Rowling does not want trans people to dehumanize women.
​
  Which is fair. JK Rowling has stood against the far right and she has stood against the misogyny of the very loud trans activists. Rowling has received death threats and rape threats and has literally had her own name erased from her life’s work as a result. But she has stood firm in her belief. She will not let people bully her into silence.
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   That does not make her transphobic. That makes her admirable.

   ​I logged into my Twitter account in late September 2020 and saw that the hashtag #BigMike was trending.

    Who was Big Mike? Probably a sports thing. Odd that it was trending under “Politics.”

​    I clicked the hashtag and saw that it had started after far right celebrity James Woods had posted a picture of several past Presidents and First Ladies at Barbara Bush’s funeral.

   James Woods was hinting at a conspiracy theory that has been a fixture on QAnon for at least five years now, if not longer.

   That conspiracy theory is that First Lady Michelle Obama is a man, or a trans woman.

   According to the theory her daughters, Sasha and Malia Obama, are not hers but are “rented” from another couple.

  It’s an odd assertion considering that Malia Obama looks like her mother so distinctly. Conspiracy theorists don’t care about evidence, however. Their end goal is using transphobic and racist rumors to bring down powerful women.

   BTW, I think we have to stop pretending that Twitter was a progressive heaven before Elon Musk bought the platform. You remember how we were supposed to be sad when all those former Twitter employees filmed themselves dramatically packing up their desks after Elon Musk fired them? Well, these were the same employees who were busy scratching their balls when QAnon ran like wildfire on Twitter and Trump openly plotted an insurrection through his presidential Twitter account.

   You couldn’t get a tweet removed for love, money or a million racial slurs back in the 20-teens.

   Yeah, forget those guys. Glad they lost their jobs.
​
   Anyway, back to the horrifying racist shitshow that is the QAnon conspiracy theories about Michelle Obama.

​

   The transphobic theory about Michelle Obama first started with late comedienne Joan Rivers. Rivers said during a street interview in 2014 that President Obama was gay and that First Lady Michelle Obama was a “tranny.” It was a terribly racist and transphobic joke. Rivers died a few weeks later while getting surgery and conspiracy theorists immediately drew the conclusion that her death was because she knew the “truth” about Michelle Obama.

   Questions about President Barack Obama’s sexuality have been swirling since 2008 when his GOP opponents found it very difficult to dig up any dirt on the clean-cut Obama. The racist stereotype of the hyper-sexualized black man is deeply ingrained in American culture so the fact that a black man could be a faithful husband to his wife was simply unacceptable to white Americans. Where were the “baby-mommas?” Where were the multiple girlfriends and one-night stands and crowds of illegitimate children now living on welfare? George W Bush being a faithful husband and father was taken for granted by white America. Of course a white man can be monogamous and faithful. A black man who was faithful to his wife, however, HAD to be gay.

   Obama’s presidency pre-dated QAnon but there were far right outlets for rightwing conspiracy theories. Larry Sinclair, an eccentric fraudster and con man, published a book alleging that he had had a homosexual affair with Barack Obama. Conspiracy blogger Wayne Madsen talked about a huge gay conspiracy where Obama, Rahm Emmanuel and Deval Patrick (among others) frequented Chicago’s gay bathhouses.

    Starting in 2018, QAnon arose and did what QAnon does best: it took an obliquely racist conspiracy theory and made it more blatantly racist along with misogynistic. Not only was Barack Obama gay, according to QAnon, but his wife Michelle Obama was a trans woman with a large penis who used to be called Michael Lavaughn Robinson (aka “Big Mike”).

   This conspiracy theory was “substantiated” by the Joan Rivers video and photoshopped pictures that made Michelle Obama look taller and larger than she really was. A favorite technique of QAnon photoshoppers was to photoshop Michelle Obama looking taller than Barack Obama, thus emasculating him and humiliating her by implying that tall women were somehow less feminine.

​

​   There are even more humiliatingly photoshopped pictures of Michelle Obama where she is shown with wrinkles in her clothes that look like a bulge in the crotch. There are other manipulated photos making fun of the breadth of her shoulders. “THIS is why there are no photos of Michelle Obama pregnant!” Q Twitter often posts.

   The “Big Mike” QAnon theory is just the latest iteration of mocking and shaming black women’s bodies in American culture.
​
   Secondary to the QAnon “Big Mike” rumor is another rumor that New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is also a trans woman. This rumor started with footage of Ardern walking down a hallway with wrinkles in her dress that made it look like she had a bulge in her crotch. Any woman who has ever worn skirts with hose will recognize that type of wrinkle as something that occurs when static cling builds up between the hose and the inner lining of the dress. This awkward static cling is common when women are walking and it can create weird wrinkles.

    ​It should come as a surprise to no one that this type of weaponized transphobia being aimed at non-trans women is primarily targeting powerful women. Michelle Obama is an enormously influential First Lady. Jacinda Ardern is the Prime Minister of New Zealand and frequent target of the far right after she outlawed automatic weapons following the mass shooting in Christchurch.

   It comes as no surprise that far right transphobes are spreading their poison to non-trans women.
​
   I myself am a tall and broad-shouldered woman. I am not trans however I was often cruelly teased by my classmates about possibly being a man while I was in middle school. I would also have my gender questioned as an adult woman when I lived and worked in Asia. I would go out of my way to dress in a very feminine manner (make-up, pencil skirts, hose and heels) to make up for my towering height and large shoulders. Other women had it worse and many of my larger female colleagues simply ignored the stares and the giggles when they walked around in downtown Seoul.

   ​Tall women, large women, muscular women and women who suffer from polycystic ovary syndrome (which can sometimes involve excess facial hair) can be misgendered. Indeed I could not help noticing under the “Big Mike” hashtag that a lot of women were timidly saying “I’m six feet tall and a lot of people mistake me for a man. But I’m not.” Or “Just because Michelle Obama is tall doesn’t mean she’s trans. I’m tall too and it hurts when people think I’m not a woman.”

   Ignoring QAnon’s weaponized misogyny, racism and transphobia against powerful women is a bad tactic. It’s time we started talking about why topics like “Big Mike” can trend so easily on Twitter or why such an insulting theory is even allowed to exist outside of the fringes of the internet.

   More importantly we need to talk about the worrying resiliency of misogyny. Now in 2023 we are being hit on all sides. Trans activists on the left smear women as “TERFs” and “unsafe” if women voice even the slightest criticism about AMAB trans people usurping women’s achievements in society. Transphobic voices on the right pretend to protect women but clearly do not give a damn about us as they spread rumors that Michelle Obama is a man and feminists are the reason for teenagers taking puberty blockers.
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   Damn, women just can’t win. Every Democrat I know has flipped Michelle Obama’s famous phrase: “When they go low, we go high” to “When they go low I go even lower.” It’s hard to remain above it all. And Michelle Obama has acknowledged that in her latest book The Light We Carry: “Going high is a commitment, and not a particularly glamorous one, to keep moving forward. It only works when we do the work.”
It’s very hard work.

  The couple behind me are on the worst date ever. I am experiencing second-hand cringe every time I hear them speak. It’s like a car wreck. You can’t look away.

   I am typing on my laptop at a coffee place. There are two guys sitting down at the table behind me and …

   It’s brutal my friends. It’s absolutely brutal.

   Both these guys look really young. Maybe early twenties. They both have coffee. One guy bought a muffin. The guy with the muffin is trying to make conversation.

   And the second guy will not look up from his phone.

   Not even once.

   Oh my God dude, put your phone down! You’re on a date! Talk to the muffin guy.

   The muffin guy is trying so hard to have a conversation. “I actually don’t know a lot of gay guys at work. Like, I think there are a few but I don’t really talk to them.”

   The other guy is just, no response. Not one. Just continues looking at his phone.

   What the fuck? Phone guy can’t even acknowledge muffin guy? Not even once? Why even go on a date with someone if you’re just going to be passive-aggressive? I don’t get it.

  And I can tell this is a date. There’s a sort of poignant hopefulness going on with muffin guy. He really just wanted to ask out another guy and have coffee and maybe talk and then maybe make out? If he is lucky?

   But the other guy just won’t look up from his phone!

   Have phones ruined dates? Do people just not talk anymore on dates?

   God, I’m so glad I don’t date anymore. Or that smartphones existed back when I was dating. We had flip phones back then. You could only glance at a flip phone. If no one had texted you, you had to put away the phone and re-engage with the person physically next to you. You could only be anti-social for so long.

   Is phone guy not gay? Is that the problem here? Did he accept the coffee meet-up because he just wanted to hang with friends at work, and he didn’t realize that muffin guy was asking him out on a date? And now phone guy doesn’t know how to say “Hey, I just wanted to be friends. I’m not gay. I’m sorry, I misunderstood what this was.”

    Why not just say that? Are guys just afraid of being straightforward with each other?

   Phone guy glanced up from his phone for a split second and muffin guy seizes his chance to once again start a conversation with his date. “So was it hard moving here?”

    It’s a decent conversation starter. Ask your date about himself. Let him talk.

    But phone guy doesn’t respond. He just looks back at his phone.
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   I feel so sorry for muffin guy. He’s trying so hard. And it’s awful for young people to go out and have human interaction these days. They just want to be safe behind their screens.

    Muffin guy took a risk, and now he’s getting screwed for it.

   I hope muffin guy finds someone decent to date. Phone guy is such a loser. And phone guy knows what he’s doing. He knows he’s being an asshole.

   Geez, guys in their 20s are so horrible that even other guys in their 20s get hurt by them. No wonder women have fled the dating apps.

   I can’t take this anymore. I’m putting my earphones back in. I’m going back to the computer. I am driving past the car accident.
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   Let these guys figure it out. I’ve fought in the dating trenches back in my day. I don’t need to acquire any more battle wounds second-hand.

​

Waaay back during the days of the Obama administration there was a show on TLC called 19 Kids and Counting. The show was a reality TV series about the large, charismatic Duggar family. Mother Michelle Duggar and Father Jim Bob Duggar were the parents of 19 adorable kiddos. The girls were beautiful with long curly pre-Raphaelite hair and modest skirts. The boys were fresh-faced youths that epitomized young American manhood.

The Duggar family, a strict Christian conservative family, offered the world a vision of the happiness that awaited women who chose to give up feminism.


The show, 19 Kids and Counting, was anti-feminist propaganda. Its message was clear: Michelle Duggar and her daughters may have given up the freedoms that most 21st century women enjoyed but look how happy they are! None of the women on the show were anxious or worried or frightened or fearful or stressed about their paths in life. Their paths in life were ALREADY DETERMINED and oh what a relief that was.

Each year on the show mom Michelle Duggar would get pregnant and have a baby. For awhile the family was fairly uncontroversial. TLC made sure that the Duggars remained apolitical and not too obnoxiously preachy when it came to their ultra-conservative brand of Christianity.

The Duggars started to become controversial in 2010 when Michelle Duggar, at the age of 43, gave birth to Josie Duggar at 6 months gestation. Josie Duggar was severely premature, weighing just 1 pound at birth, and the public were confused as to why a 40-something woman with 18 children was still continuing to get pregnant. When, after giving birth to Josie Duggar, Michelle happily announced that she was pregnant again there was a lot of anger among TV viewers. It seemed like such an irresponsible act.

When Michelle Duggar later announced that she had miscarried her pregnancy public sympathy was in rather short supply.

Women’s rights advocates began to attack 19 Kids and Counting. Feminists could sense that there was a sort of darkness about the Duggars. Despite the family’s surface sunniness the Duggars’ family philosophy had an underlying harshness. Women following the Duggar rules had to be set on a narrow path in life that involved multiple dangerous pregnancies and complete submission to family patriarchs.

But still, the women seemed happy. Right?

I mean, is it really that bad to give up some rights in exchange for happiness?

Most people are aware of what happened next. In 2015 it came to light that Josh Duggar, the oldest son of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, had sexually assaulted several of his sisters. Jim Bob and Michelle had covered up the assaults and Josh Duggar had never faced justice. Later Josh Duggar was sent to prison on child pornography charges. He is currently serving a 12 year sentence.

The scandal was, as you can imagine, a massive blow to the anti-feminist movement.

The whole point of anti-feminism was that women received a life of happiness and safety in exchange for relinquishing their rights. They got the handsome protective husband and healthy, rosy-cheeked children. And in return the women would not complain or assert herself or occupy anything except a subservient position to the patriarch of the household.

If you kept sweet, you stayed happy. THAT was the deal!

The message turned out to be false. It doesn’t matter if you are a feminist or an anti-feminist. There is no lifestyle with a magical GUARANTEE of happiness.

With feminism, however, women are allowed to have safety nets if they encounter abuse. They do not have to remain at the mercy of whatever the family patriarch decides.

The anti-feminist movement pushed back against the Josh Duggar scandal. Come on people, all families have bad apples. Josh was an aberration. OVERALL the Anti-Feminist families yield more happy women than Feminism. Right? Look at the other Duggar women! They’re all happy and smiling.

The damage had been done, however. Even without Josh Duggar the Duggar family was full of the same woes as any other family on the planet.

Jinger Duggar revealed that this month.

Jinger Duggar (her name is pronounced like “ginger,” which surprised me. I always thought her name was like “JING- er” and thought it was a pity that her parents had given her such a stupid name) released a book, Becoming Free Indeed.

The title of Jinger’s book is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the website “Free Jinger.” The website was started in the early 20-teens after several 19 Kids and Counting viewers noticed that Jinger seemed to be a little more rebellious than the other Duggar daughters. Duggar critics were thrilled whenever they caught young Jinger roll her eyes at her parents’ words or declare she liked cities over the country. People became hopeful that Jinger would be the first child to completely break away from the Duggar cult.

By the way, please check out Fundie Fridays’ excellent video on Jinger Duggar here.

In Becoming Free Indeed Jinger has nothing but kind words for her parents. She remains a conservative Christian and her book is free of any of the satisfying “tea” that most Duggar haters were anticipating. That being said Jinger also strongly condemns the brand of Christianity that she had been raised in.

The Duggars followed Bill Gothard, the head of a fundamentalist Christian movement called the “Institute in Basic Life Principles” or IBLP.

Gothard was forced to resign from IBLP in 2014- one year before the Josh Duggar allegations were revealed- after it was revealed that Gothard had sexually abused at least 34 women (some only teens at the time) who worked for him.

Gothard had a lot of sexual peccadilloes that he forced on women as requirements for entry into heaven while Gothard ran IBLP. All godly women, according to Gothard, needed to have long curly hair, maxi skirts and dresses. This “little girl” look was how the Duggar women were also required to dress.

Frankly even back in 2012 I thought there was something fetish-y with the Duggar daughters’ style of dress. It did not seem quite the same as the “modest” style of dress that more conservative Jewish, Muslim and Christian women commonly wear in society. The Bill Gothard/ Duggar style of female clothing was designed for the heterosexual male gaze while cosplaying as “modest.”

The insistence on the long curly hair gives it away.

In Becoming Free Indeed Jinger Duggar talked about the mental health problems that ruled her childhood. Jinger Duggar suffered from eating disorders and severe anxiety that made her sob with fear over even meeting friends for lunch. “What I grew up in was very fear-based,” Jinger Duggar said in a recent interview, “Based on superstition, manipulation (and) control.”

“I was promised that if I followed these teachings from Bill Gothard- this man- that my life would be a success…. but if I didn’t follow every principle maybe God’s gonna kill me in an accident.”

Jinger Duggar talked about the internal agonies she went through for the “sin” of wearing “a borderline kneeling skirt that would come above my knee when sitting.” Jinger Duggar also revealed that she had an eating disorder due to an obsession with being “perfectly thin.”

It’s almost like complete female submission to a patriarch does NOT solve the anxieties and unhappiness women face in society. It’s almost like there is no magical cure-all.

The best you can do is help women by giving them safety nets when life goes sideways. That is feminism.

Anti-feminism is pretending that life NEVER goes sideways.

Jinger Duggar has broken away from Bill Gothard’s church and is talking about the abuses that the Duggar brand of conservative Christianity brought to women. She is frustrating Christian fundamentalists across the nation. Jinger Duggar, however, is still very much a conservative and still follows a Calvinist Christian church, frustrating Feminist Duggar critics. Jinger Duggar is not conforming to ANYONE’S notion of who she should be.

And that, my friends, is becoming free indeed.

TW: This article will be discussing anti-Semitic imagery.

Okay, let’s be frank. The trans rights movement has had a rough month. First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon’s polls plummeted after Sturgeon pushed through her historically unpopular Gender ID bill. Sturgeon also defended an AMAB trans person being placed in a woman’s prison despite this AMAB trans person having violently raped several women. The reaction by the public wasn’t pretty.

Then India Willoughby, a prominent trans activist and TV personality in the UK, waved her white Karen flag high when Willoughby compared being asked questions on TV to being lynched.

Sure Jan. A wealthy white British woman being interviewed about trans people in women’s prisons is EXACTLY THE SAME as the historical trauma black Americans suffered for centuries at the hands of lynch mobs. That’s not appropriative at all. No sirree!

Ugh

Oh, plus the Harry Potter game Hogwarts Legacy has already broken records for pre-release sales on Steam despite a loud online boycott by trans activists. JK Rowling has been busy doing evil things like opening rape shelters and helping refugees escape Afghanistan while prominent trans rights activists have been… um… posting Hogwarts Legacy “spoilers” on social media?

I mean, how can you post a “spoiler” for a game? Isn’t the whole point of the game not the story but the world-immersion aspect? People only want to enjoy the top-notch visuals and character interactions and puzzles. Who cares about “spoilers?”

Try harder. I mean, the Black Panthers civil rights movement served free breakfast to low-income children in an effort to make inroads for their cause back in the 60s. Maybe trans activists could do something like that instead of continually posting on Twitter about who cursed Anne? Just saying.

Trans activists are a bit on the ropes at the moment so they have now started a new tactic: insisting that JK Rowling is anti-Semitic! Not only is JK Rowling transphobic (she’s not, btw, but let’s leave that to the side for the moment) but she’s HATES JEWS!

How is JK Rowling anti-Semitic you ask? I can understand the confusion there. The whole through-plot of the Harry Potter series was about the conflict between Death-Eaters (thinly-disguised Nazis) and “Mudbloods” (wizards born from Muggles, who were seen as “impure” by the villain Voldemort’s followers). It was basically a metaphor about the conflict between the supposedly pure “Aryan” Nazi movement in the 20th century and Jews.

JK Rowling has always been pretty explicitly anti-Nazi.

But no. A lot of trans activists out there are INSISTING that JK Rowling is anti-Semitic and frankly as a Jewish person whose grandfather survived the Holocaust… it’s starting to piss me off.

Please stop using Jewish historical trauma as a rhetorical tool to go after JK Rowling. Please don’t. It’s not great, especially when the arguments being made are in such bad faith.

Why is JK Rowling anti-Semitic according to these new critics? It’s because the goblins that run Gringotts bank are (allegedly) anti-Semitic caricatures.

So let’s break this down. Are the Gringotts goblins anti-Semitic caricatures? Let’s check out the passage from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone where the goblins are first introduced.

“Gringotts,” said Hagrid.

They had reached a snowy white building that towered over the other little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was-

“Yeah, that’s a goblin,” said Hagrid quietly as they walked up the white stone steps toward him. The goblin was about a head shorter than Harry. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and, Harry noticed, very long fingers and feet. He bowed as they walked inside.

So let’s compare Rowling’s description with classic anti-Semitic imagery from Nazi Germany.

There is some overlap. The goblins run a bank and anti-Semitic tropes usually show Jews as bankers obsessed with money. The goblin has a pointed beard which is also often seen in anti-Jewish imagery.

Other more well-known features involving anti-Semitic caricatures are missing from Rowling’s goblins. The goblin is dressed in a suit of red and gold while anti-Semitic cartoons usually show Jews to be dressed in black. The goblin is “swarthy” while anti-Semitic cartoons usually show Jews as pale and wormy. The goblin has very long fingers and feet, which is not a traditional anti-Semitic physical trait. We don’t get a description of the goblin’s nose or whether the goblin is hunchbacked.

Something else that’s noteworthy: JK Rowling’s goblins are very subterranean. The vaults of the bank are deep in caves underground. The goblins travel from vault to vault in miner’s carts that drive themselves. There seems to be a real mining tradition associated with the goblins.

Again, Jewish stereotypes are not associated with mining.

Do you know what is associated with mining? Ancient Anglo-Saxon and proto-Germanic mythology about tiny bearded men who mined underground. You can call them “dweorg” (Old English), “dvergr” (Old Norse), or “twerg” (Old High German). Or you could call them “dwarves” as JRR Tolkien did. Or goblins, as JK Rowling did.

You can’t call them anti-Semitic caricatures, however. The mythology of dwarves in Britain pre-dates the movement of Jewish populations into Western Europe.

Now, that being said, while JK Rowling never intended for the goblins to be anti-Semitic caricatures, the makers of the Harry Potter movies are on slightly shakier ground.

Unlike the description of the goblins in JK Rowling’s writings, the producers of the movie adaptation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone seem to have given the movie goblins far more anti-Semitic overtones. The goblins in the movie had large pointed noses (something Rowling never wrote in her description), are dressed in black Victorian banker clothes (again something Rowling never described), and are hunchbacked (another description that was never in the book).

Keep in mind that Rowling had no input when it came to character design for the Harry Potter movies. She merely signed over the rights to her work and was not further consulted by Warner Bros. Her only credit in the movie Philosopher’s Stone is as the author of the books the movies are based on.

But then again, the producer of the Harry Potter movies was a man, and thus less likely to attract the wrath of penis-possessing people. The fact that none of the (male) costume designers, visual concept artists and producers of the Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone movie have been criticized for their anti-Semitic imagery shows the bad faith in which the accusations of “anti-Semitism” against JK Rowling are made.

Because let’s be real. The people criticizing JK Rowling for “anti-Semitism” don’t actually give a damn about us Jews. They’re just throwing anything they can at Rowling and hoping it sticks.

And it’s still not working.

When the main villain of your movement is busy opening needed rape shelters while the people who represent your cause appear to spend all their energy posting TikToks about what exactly it means to be “tri-gender”… you’re losing.

It’s time to stop obsessing about JK Rowling and start solving actual problems affecting the trans community today. Trans people are disproportionately houseless and low income and unemployed. That needs attention.

And if you could stop exploiting Jewish historical trauma in your fight, that’d be just great.

I remember being obsessed with Disney movies in the 80s. I was exactly at the right age to enjoy the rise of Disney’s second Golden Era of animation.

When The Little Mermaid came out in 1989 I insisted that my poor mother take me to see it again and again. My mother, who has always been a feminist, hated the movie. At the time I never understood how The Little Mermaid could have been seen as a movie with a bad message. Yeah, Ariel was only 16 when she got married to Prince Eric at the end but 16-year-olds are basically adults, right? Like, they have boyfriends and drive cars and study books with algebra and sometimes calculus in them! To 7-year-old me, 16 seemed like a perfectly good age to marry a 25-year-old man.

And yes, I know that Disney canon has officially retconned Prince Eric’s age to just-turned-18 (the movie starts with the sailors celebrating Eric’s birthday) so that Prince Eric is less than two years older than Ariel.

Still, I think Disney just did that to make the scenario less creepy. Prince Eric always seemed like a twenty-something guy to me. The fact that during the birthday scene Eric’s elderly passive-aggressive courtier Grimsby is bemoaning the fact that Eric was not married yet sort of implies that Eric is well past his teen years. (Eric’s actual age is never mentioned in that scene.)

It must have been easy during the late 80s to brush off feminist criticism. “Geez, it’s a fairy tale! Stop being such a stick-in-the-mud about kids films!”

Still, judging by Disney’s next film Beauty and the Beast, someone at Disney must have been listening to feminists.

Beauty and the Beast has a quiet feminism to it that The Little Mermaid lacks. Right off the bat, Belle in Beauty and the Beast is a lot older than the 16-year-old Ariel. We never really get an exact number but the fact that Belle’s father is elderly (“I’m old. I’ve lived my life.”) puts Belle well into adulthood.

What struck me the most while rewatching Beauty and the Beast was the villain Gaston. As a bad guy Gaston was REAL! And I mean that in the worst sense of the word. Sorceresses who turn into dragons like Maleficent? Witches with magic mirrors? Those villains were safely fantastical. Rapists in 19th century France who forced themselves on women while the entire village approved?

That’s real folks.

Rachel Armstrong Kolar and Thomas Kolar, who host the podcast “The Wonderful World of Darklords,” point out that Gaston is far darker than a regular playboy. Gaston clearly has lots of gorgeous women throwing themselves at him but he does not want to enjoy himself with a consenting woman. Gaston wants the woman who does NOT want him.

Even pre-adolescent girls knew that there was SOMETHING frighteningly true-to-life in the scene when Gaston forces himself into Belle’s house and proposes to her. Belle is alone with a man who is far stronger than her. That man is clearly sexually aggressive. Belle needs to find a way to get herself to safety without being hurt. It’s all very anxiety-inducing.

The message of the scene is clear: Hey girls, it’s okay to not want a boyfriend. It’s NOT okay for others to pressure you into getting a boyfriend. And if any guy tries to force himself on you like Gaston did, that’s a bad thing!

It’s a bit of a “Well, duh” message but believe me, for early 90s Disney that was a strong form of feminist validation. And it was important for Beauty and the Beast’s audience, pre-adolescent girls, to hear it.

Contrast Gaston’s behavior with the Beast. I was struck while re-watching the relationship between Belle and the Beast by the emotional sophistication Disney managed to pack into the film.

It’s easy to see the Beast’s behavior at the beginning of the film as having a traditional masculine toxicity. The Beast imprisons Belle in the castle. He tells her where and where not to go. He’s very closed-off emotionally. He’s socially awkward. He makes cringey small talk while Belle weeps over losing her father.

The audience is aware that the Beast’s behavior is driven by self-loathing, fear over remaining a beast forever, and years of loneliness in his castle.

Belle, of course, does not know this. She only sees the Beast (understandably) as a danger every bit as likely to hurt her as Gaston.

Watching Belle and the Beast’s relationship evolve into a real partnership with mutual compassion is wonderful. In the social media age of “My feelings and ONLY my feelings are valid” it’s nice to watch a children’s movie where both Belle and the Beast are forced to make allowances for one another while building their relationship.

One scene I adore is when Belle and the Beast are eating breakfast. Belle is eating porridge with a spoon. The Beast, however, is eating porridge messily with his huge paws. The Beast doesn’t have the manual dexterity to hold a spoon and Belle won’t eat with her hands, so they both compromise and sip the porridge directly from the bowls. It’s a neat and civilized way to eat while being inclusive of the Beast’s limited dexterity.

We see the Beast progress from epitomizing masculine toxicity to epitomizing masculine virtue when Belle tells the Beast that she needs to leave the castle. The Beast knows that if she leaves there is a good chance that he will remain a beast forever. Belle may not return, certainly not before the enchanted rose sheds its last petal and dooms the Beast to live out his life in animal form.

The Beast sacrifices himself to give Belle her autonomy. It is an example of masculine virtue. The later fight between Gaston, who whips up a mob against the Beast, and the Beast drives the point home that the REAL beast was Gaston the entire time.

When it comes to feminism, I will admit that Beauty and the Beast is no Moana. Still, the quiet strain of feminism that the movie showed to its late-20th century audience of little girls is wholesome. Yes, Belle gets her Prince Charming in the end, but only after the movie makes it clear that Belle marries the Beast as a choice. Belle’s husband is her choice that she made on her own time and in her own way. And after the Beast has learned to respect her freedom.

Even my mom agrees.

Plus my mom loved the fact that I was old enough to go to the movie theater by myself when Beauty and the Beast was released.

I remember when my friend, a mom and a Disney expert, told me that she hated the Disney millennial movie classic Lilo and Stitch.

When Lilo and Stitch was released in 2002, the Mouse House was in the red after having suffered several high budget flops like Dinosaur and Brother Bear. Disney needed a hit. Lilo and Stitch was no Lion King money maker but the story about a rambunctious little alien named Stitch who befriended a little Earth girl named Lilo made enough money to save Disney Feature Animation studios.

Most millennials have fond memories of Lilo and Stitch. The movie, however, doesn’t hold up that well when rewatched as an adult.

Especially if you’re a parent.

“I hated Stitch particularly,” my friend said, “He’s supposed to be this adorable puppy figure wrecking the house but the stakes are too high. I couldn’t laugh at any of his antics. I just wanted Nani and Lilo to kill the little thing and then slow-roast him with a nice garlic sesame sauce.”

I knew what my friend meant when she said that the “stakes were too high.” No parent watching Lilo and Stitch can fully enjoy the story. Watching Stitch destroy Nani and Lilo’s home as Nani tries desperately to convince the Child Protective Services (CPS) case worker that she is a competent guardian for Lilo is absolutely triggering.

Here’s the deal: Lilo and Stitch is a movie about an impoverished mother-figure trying desperately to keep CPS from putting her child in foster care.

Technically Nani, the mother-figure in Lilo and Stitch, is actually Lilo’s big sister. Nani and Lilo’s parents are dead and Nani has guardianship, but she also suffers from all the institutional oppression that single moms face in American society. There is no low-cost daycare available, so when Nani has to work as a waitress she brings Lilo with her to sit at one of the back tables. Nani has no car and the necessity of her working means Lilo is alone a lot of the time. Lilo also clearly has a lot of unresolved trauma from the death of her parents. She gets into fights at school. She destroys property, runs away, and openly disobeys Nani to a dangerous extent (Lilo at one point nails the door of the house shut while a pot boils away on the stove.)

Nani and Lilo’s situation has drawn the attention of Child Protective Services.

And here I have to put my foot down. Come on Disney! Give us evil stepmoms! Give us octopus-tentacle witches! Give us dragons and poisoned apples and princesses locked in towers.

But don’t fucking give us Child Protective Services! Seriously! Nothing, and I mean absolutely NOTHING triggers a parent like hearing those three letters: CPS.

Every parent, no matter how loving, still lives in fear of CPS. We tremble at the thought of having our kids taken away from us suddenly and with no reason. We bite our nails every time we find out that our child went to school with dirty clothes or when our toddler falls off the couch and screams. Did he bump his head? Does he need to go to the hospital?

And will the hospital call CPS?

Anyway, in Lilo and Stitch Nani is busy trying to keep her little sister out of the system when Stitch, a maniacal space alien, crash lands on Earth in Hawaii. Lilo loves Stitch, thinking he’s some sort of weird dog, but Stitch destroys Lilo and Nani’s house. He tears the place to shambles right when Nani is trying to convince an imposing case worker called “Cobra” that Lilo has a safe home environment.

This is nerve-wracking enough, but the danger is compounded by the fact that both Nani and Lilo are indigenous Hawaiians. The long horrifying history of indigenous children being taken away by the US government and placed in abusive boarding schools (where many indigenous children died) looms in the background.

Back in 2002 the reception towards Lilo and Stitch was generally positive. People were aware that the animation was a bit more low-budget than the glamour we were used to with The Little Mermaid and Aladdin but the movement was nice and fluid and the characters were endearing enough. Viewers also liked how Nani and Lilo were drawn with more realistic body shapes as compared to the 90s wasp-waisted Disney princesses.

In the end, however, I agree with my friend. Once Disney introduced the constant looming threat of CPS taking away Lilo, the movie ceased to be fun. At least for parents.

And Stitch absolutely should have ended up slow-roasted over a flame whilst dipped in garlic sesame sauce.

Look, I know The Crawling Eye is cheesy. I know this film is so dumb that it was literally featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000…. but I don’t care.

The Crawling Eye is a good movie.

I like The Crawling Eye. The film was made in 1958 but somehow it still possesses that pre-War British black-and-white thriller atmosphere I adore. It’s no The 39 Steps but The Crawling Eye has good plotting, no-nonsense dialogue and a fantastic suspenseful build-up that even now in 2023 can keep your attention glued to the screen.

Does the movie have flaws? Yes, of course. The climax, when the audience gets to see the crawling eye, is a bit disappointing. I won’t deny that. The fuzzy close-up of the gooey disgusting eye is passable but the limp string-controlled “tentacles” are ridiculous. They have all the fearful energy of overcooked pasta.

I still snicker a bit at the child actress, completely devoid of fear, calmly standing with a supposed “tentacle” around her waist while the adult actor tries to desperately rescue her.

The Crawling Eye (aka The Trollenburg Terror in the UK) was made during an era where no audience members were truly fooled by monster effects. Folks don’t know about the pre- Star Wars era of movies where being scared by the monster on the screen required a hefty suspension of disbelief on the part of the viewer. It was a lift-with-your-thighs-not-your-back level suspension of disbelief.

Did scary movies exist before computerized special effects? Oh heck yes! Watch M and see if you don’t get scared. But those movies relied on acting and plotting and dialogue and lighting and editing to give chills. If make-believe monsters were involved, they would have little screentime.

The Crawling Eye opens up with several climbers huddled together on a cliff face while mountain-climbing in the Alps.

Automatically this setting gets my happy adventure endorphins pumping.

Yes, it’s dumb to think that you can have a glorious mountain-climbing experience six thousand feet above sea level while wearing only a turtleneck. To the twelve-year-old boys raised on media like The Adventures of Tintin comic books, however, a good woolen sweater is all you need for a climb. Read any boy’s adventure tale where hypothermia is just a passable condition that can be cured with a swig from a hip flask and you’ll know what I mean. The opening shot of The Crawling Eye looks like a regular, rugged, exciting trip.

Unfortunately things go wrong for our turtlenecked alpinists. One of the men gets his head torn off by an unseen menace. We then cut to a train whooshing through a tunnel as the opening credits roll.

On the train are two beautiful sisters, Anne and Sarah Pilgrim, who are part of a clairvoyance sideshow act. As the train approaches Mount Trollenburg, the mountain where the alpinist lost his head, Anne suddenly gets a creepy urge to get off the train. She becomes agitated and insists that she and her sister stay at the mountain. Anne cannot explain why she has such a sudden urge to visit the mountain but only states repeatedly that they have to go to Trollenburg.

Anne’s unnatural and sudden urge to visit the mountain is a well-placed suspenseful setup. The Creeping Eye has excellent plot pacing and knows how to keep the audience engaged.

Anne and Sarah get a room at the Hotel Europa, a small inn at the base of Mount Trollenburg. We meet a few more characters, including a scientist from the UN named Alan Brooks. Brooks has also arrived at the Trollenburg mountain at the request of a researcher, who is worried about an odd cloud that has formed around the mountain’s peak.

The inn has very few guests because of the mysterious decapitation deaths that have been occurring to alpinists on the Trollenburg. The creepy atmosphere hangs thick around the place.

Sarah Pilgrim meets two friendly British mountaineers, Guilhardt and Brett, who are prepping to climb up to a small hut on the Trollenburg.

Later that evening at the inn Sarah and Anne give a demonstration of their mind-reading act. Anne has to psychically visualize certain objects Sarah hides behind a screen. Anne first accurately describes a snow globe with a model of a mountain and a hut. Then Anne falls into a trance describing the mountain and the hut and Alan Brooks realizes that Anne is describing the actual hut on the mountain where the two British mountaineers are currently staying. Anne describes one of the mountaineers named Brett leaving the cabin in a trance.

It’s a satisfyingly spooky scene in a cheesy horror movie sort of way.

A rescue party leaves to climb up the mountain to rescue Guilhardt and Brett. Brett suddenly arrives back at the inn, acting strangely. Brett is shaky and talks about how the inn is too hot. When Anne shows up in the inn’s lounge where Brett is having a drink, Brett tries to kill her.

Another man rescues Anne and punches Brett unconscious. Brett falls to the floor, splitting open his scalp in the process. Sarah then notices that Brett isn’t bleeding from his wound. His body apparently has no blood.

I can’t explain why, but that image of Brett’s open, wide, bloodless wound is one of the creepiest shots in cinematic history. It just hits a very scary nerve with me.

Later it’s found out that Brett has been dead for awhile. The crawling eye creature killed Brett, reanimated him and sent him back to the inn to kill Anne. The crawling eye didn’t like how Anne’s clairvoyance was giving away the crawling eye’s actions.

There’s a bunch more stuff that is admittedly less interesting for me. Like most cheesy horror movies, the action gets dull once the delicious build-up ends and we’re left with actually fighting the stupid rubber puppet.

But you know what, go ahead and roast me because I like The Crawling Eye. I love the mountain setting. I love the idea of a Swiss inn tucked away at the foot of a haunted crag. I find the characters- especially the Pilgrim sisters- surprisingly likeable. I absolutely adore the exciting, suspenseful slow-burn set up of the film. I have no problem late at night popping in my DVD of The Crawling Eye and watching it as visual comfort food.

Because, like I said before, The Crawling Eye is a good movie.

I remember the first time I watched Star Wars.

I was a kid in the 80s. My family was watching a VHS copy of Star Wars: A New Hope.

We saw the white armor-plated Imperial Stormtroopers board a Rebel vessel. We heard C3PO fret about “the princess.” Then we saw Princess Leia load a disc onto the R2D2 droid.

I was brought up on old school Disney movies and first generation Mario Bros games. I knew what princesses did. They wore pretty dresses, got captured, fainted and had to rely on being beautiful enough for the male heroes to consider them worth rescuing.

It was a simple formula.

When I first saw Princess Leia, I was not very impressed. Yeah, she had the flowy white gown on but it was very underwhelming. Leia was just wearing a white turtleneck with some sheets draped over it. It looked slapped-together.

(By the way, what was it about sci-fi movies in the 70s always putting their main characters in turtlenecks? Did people during the Carter years really think turtlenecks were the future?)

Anyway, back to Princess Leia

I was young and my first impression of Leia was very “meh.” I didn’t like Princess Leia’s hair. The two iconic buns tied around her ears did not please me. Everyone knew that princesses needed long flowing blond hair, not something that looked like a pilot’s helmet with headphones.

Princess Leia’s expressions also threw me. She never seemed scared. She wasn’t pleading or seductive or kind. Princess Leia didn’t traipse through nature singing songs to her woodland friends.

Princess Leia looked grim. She looked like my second grade teacher when I had forgotten to do my math homework.

By my Disneyfied elementary school definition of “princess,” however, Princess Leia did have some “princess” qualities in her during that first scene in A New Hope. When the Stormtroopers confronted Leia, she immediately ran and hid. It was a very expected princess maneuver.

And then, and I’ll never forget this shot, we saw Princess Leia again. She had not fainted. She had not screamed for help. Instead, we saw Princess Leia lean back into the frame with a studied expression, staring at the Stormtroopers.

And Princess Leia was holding a gun.

I know this sounds weird, but this shot of Princess Leia with a gun preparing to ambush Stormtroopers who had just surprised her completely blew my pre-adolescent mind.

I didn’t know women could FIGHT BACK!

I didn’t know that someone who was a friggin’ PRINCESS could do things like ambush enemy soldiers in a fake-retreat-rearguard-attack maneuver. Like, wait, what?

Now granted, Princess Leia’s ambush attack didn’t get her very far. She shot the Stormtroopers, missed, ran again and this time was hit by a Stormtrooper blaster.
Still, that iconic shot of Princess Leia quietly leaning into the frame while holding a gun peaked a lot of girls into feminism. The idea that women didn’t have to run away but could stay and fight was a welcome inversion of the feminine paradigm.

I wouldn’t consider Star Wars to be a feminist movie. That galaxy long, long ago and far, far away seemed to be populated only by men and Princess Leia. Star Wars does not pass the Bechdel Test by any stretch of the imagination.

That being said Princess Leia with that gun in A New Hope is an icon.

Seeing a woman possess a stereotypically lacey title like “Princess” while being a rebel leader, military strategist, soldier and assassin broke a lot of female character norms at the time.

And, needless to say, I like her hair now!