The Different Types of Feminists

Angry Feminists

This isn’t even an insulting category because angry feminists know they’re angry. They embrace anger. If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention. Lots of teen girls are Angry Feminists for a little while after they see the movie 10 Things I Hate About You, but they they grow into one of the other categories or disengage from the subject entirely. Angry Feminists believe in equality but hate lots of women—basically anyone who is pretty, wears heels, or laughs a lot. Actually, a large part of Angry Feminist culture is the rejection of feminine things for the sake of rejecting feminine things. Pretty girls are synonymous with dumb girls; laughing and being happy is for people who are too stupid to see how fucked up everything is. A few, sad people never grow out of this, never learn more on the subject than they need to viciously cut down entry-levelers, and end up childless, unhappy, and pining for Kelly Osborne circa 2005.

Famous examples: Courtney Love, pre-blonde Kelly Osborne

Douchey Dude Feminists (DDFs)

Not all male feminists are DDFs – most are probably Regular Person Feminists – but this kind of feminist is so insufferable they must be mentioned here. The DDF is a feminist solely because he desires another excuse by which he can complain loudly about his own lot in life. He’s fundamentally bitter toward women because of his lack of dating success, and blames it on what he perceives to be intellectual and ideological inadequacies in the girls he finds himself pursuing. Aware of his inability to court “girl next door” types (who he believes to be stupid and shallow, otherwise they would be attracted to him, ‘obviously’) he claims to be feminist – usually without a sincere grasp of the concept – because he thinks it will give him a chance with the less desirable but probably still relatively bangable “smart plain girls.” He is ignorant of the fact that probably he just has a terrible personality and an over-developed sense of his own strengths. At his most successful, he finds friendship with the Joyless Pseudo-Intellectual Feminist (mentioned below), and together they hate on most of non-joyless population.

Famous Examples: Privilege-denying white dude, supporting male characters in Judd Apatow movies

Slutty Feminists

Oh man, this is my favorite category of feminists. Slutty feminists are bad bitches who intimidate the hell out of me because the are scary and confident and assertive but they still for some reason welcome me with open arms. They may or may not have good arguments for believing the things they do, but the Slutty Feminist is the only one who won’t make fun of me for liking Legally Blonde. They fight for the right to wear leggings as pants and booty dresses in the winter and fuck you if you think that invites a rape. This kind of feminist knows what’s up with men, knows they’re horny, knows women are hot, and know women don’t deserve to be scared all the time.

Famous examples: Karen Walker from Will and Grace, Bill Clinton, probably a lot of people who participate in SlutWalk, Chelsea Handler (unfortunately)

Joyless Pseudo-Intellectual Feminists

These kind of feminists are exhausting because they want to respond to each thing you say with a Summa Feminista blog post. Arguing with them is completely pointless, because even if you manage to ingest enough Adderall to stay awake through the conversation, they’re so closed-minded that you’ll eventually just give up. They correct the words you use to discuss feminism. Or, if you already use big words, they chide you for making your discussion inaccessible.

Famous Examples: 90% of the Tumblrs tagged ‘feminism’ (antonym example: Ann Coulter)

Regular Person Feminists

These are people just like you and me that in passing conversation would say “I’m a feminist,” but it’s not something they bring up or discuss ad nauseum. When they do discuss feminism, they do so with an open mind and without being so proselytizing that people become uncomfortable and never bring up the subject again.

Famous Examples: Tina Fey, Ryan Gosling, Drew Barrymore

Stay at Home Feminists

This type of feminist can also be thought of as a twee feminist. Stay at Home Feminists are really into holistic living, and so they stay home with their kids so they can homeschool them and keep them away from the subliminal patriarchal messaging of regular school while also teaching them how to make organic deodorant out of berries and play the mandolin. Stay at Home Feminists believe in feminism because women are equal and everyone should love each other and recycle and believe in social justice and read the book Nonviolent Communication: A Language for Life by Marshall Rosenberg. They are constant apologists for the compatibility of feminism and stay at home moms. They think they’re better than the bourgeoise but are generally harmless unless you point out that all mommy blogs are necessarily hackneyed, or say that baking is way lame.

Famous examples: Gwynth Paltrow, Ree Drummond