Bimbo Feminism: When Sexy Meets Feminism
"Why are feminists courting the male gaze?!"
Hey, my name is Ossiana and I’m proud to be a bimbo feminist.
There. I said it. I like dressing up in bimbo costumes. I have a bimbo alter ego named Bimbette the Bimbo, and damnit, when I femme up, I can rock a hot pink dress and heels.
People often have a certain belief that’s caused serious damage to me in the past. I find it to be particularly common to hear among radfems and anti-feminists who insist that you “can’t be a feminist while courting the male gaze.”
Let’s talk about socially-accepted feminism tropes.
When you think of a feminist, do you think of a girl with blue hair holding a sign about feminism who eats soy on a daily basis? Yeah, that’s a common trope.
Feminism, like other movements, has certain tropes people expect to see. Most people are aware of feminist trope “flavors” like these:
The Go-Getter. She’s a #bossbabe who also happens to have a Master’s Degree. She has her own business. She looks serious and would have worn padded shoulders in the 80s.
The Go-Getter Academic. She’s a Go-Getter who has a penchant for higher learning, curing cancer, and STEM fields. She will look down on history majors and hates fashion with a passion.
The Obese Man Repeller. She allegedly hates men because she’s not attractive to them. She also tends to hate women who look good, encouraging them to let go of themselves.
The Sex-Repulsed. She hates men because she’s frigid, hence her feminism.
The Slut. Okay, I totally am this. It’s the sex-positive feminist who enjoys having sex, happens to be nonmonogamous, and also actively supports sex worker rights.
I was raised among people who believed that feminism had ONE flavor: the Go-Getter Academic woman who was bound to either cure cancer, write the next great computer program, or become a rocket scientist.
That belief basically bound me into an education geared toward STEM. After all, I didn’t want to let down my female mentors in the compsci world. They said, “Women have to work twice as hard as men to make it here. We need you.”
I was encouraged to hate fashion — and to a point, even deride people who worked in the arts. It was seen as “brainless” to have an MFA in some of the circles I was in.
It didn’t matter that this made me miserable. I was expected to conform to be “feminist” in the eyes of others around me. That didn’t empower me. That made me feel awful, and the fact is that I was slut-shamed while trying to conform didn’t help.
Traditionally, a bimbo is a ditzy woman who dresses in pink, works for the male gaze, and is hypersexualized.
Bimbos were seen as women who weren’t feminists. They were plastic. They were toys men played with. They were “brainwashed by the patriarchy” to hate their brains or something.
Ask many people in the mainstream, and you’ll hear the terms “gold digger,” “trophy wife,” and “gross plastic surgery” thrown around. Bimbos have a bad rep among many feminists.
And yet, no one actually sat down and actually contemplated what it means to be a bimbo.
People often ask why I sexualize myself in my photoshoots while I call myself a feminist, but the answer is obvious.
The answer is simple: because I can and because it’s fun. I don’t see a reason to feel ashamed for looking sexy. I, like so many other people, am tired of being told to “shrink” myself because others find me to be too sexy, loud, wild, or un-demure.
While I am usually nonbinary, it’s fun to dress up in pink, bimbo out, and just enjoy my Y2K aesthetic. And sometimes I also gimbo, too. (That’s a gothic bimbo, FYI.)
The fact that I get as much blowback as I do from women is deeply telling about why we need bimbo feminists in the first place. A lot of feminists miss the point of feminism in the first point.
The whole point of feminism was never to tell women to grow out their armpit hair. It was meant to let them dress the way they want to, control the rights to their own bodies, and encourage people to see more than a set of titties.
Most bimbos I meet are incredible, intelligent women with their own businesses and modeling portfolios. Some are trophy wives to multi-millionaires. They’re powerful and empowered. Isn’t that what we’re fighting for?
Telling women that they’re wrong to enjoy tiny dresses and stripper heels is still body-policing them.
It’s still a form of slut-shaming them. It’s the same reason seeing people shame male bimbos makes my blood boil. No one has the right to tell anyone what to wear or how to make their bodies look!
I have no hate for women who choose not to shave, not to tan, or to just dress in baggy stuff day-to-day. Why would I hate on them? 99 percent of the time, that’s what I look like too.
A real feminist supports women regardless of what they wear or look like.
For me, being a bimbo is a form of liberation.
Being a bimbo is about transforming your body and turning it into a work of art that you design. It’s a personal journey that can be a confidence-building, life-changing choice.
Content creators like Bimbo Couture? They helped me come to terms with (and even embrace!) the pink side of me that everyone seemed to want me to quash. That’s inspirational.
For many bimbos, it’s about owning your sexuality, too. A lot of women who become bimbos find a newfound confidence in their sexuality after years of struggling with their self-esteem. Who are we to take that from them?
In other words, while bimbo feminism may incorporate the male gaze, it’s not about the man. It’s about the bimbo, himbo, or thembo taking that journey and feeling themselves.
If you ask me, that’s pretty dang feminist.
Great article! I agree the point should be about supporting everyone in the manner in which they seek to express their individuality.
Thank you so much!
"Bimbo" wasn't always a slur against women. In the 1950s, Jim Reeves had a country music hit about a candy-addicted boy with that name. I assume the shift in the meaning came later.