Unsurprisingly, the upcoming presidential election in the United States provides and abundance of opportunity to bring the Killjoy and their subsequent truths, commitments, maxims and equations to life through real world examples. And, since Donald Trump is the king of doubling down on hateful attacks - this little ditty from early August remains a talking point.
X was all a-Twitter on August 6, 2024, as social media responded to Kamala Harris choosing Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate. While many of the posting Democrats expressed excitement, hope, and seemingly breathed a sigh of relief, others slammed his failure to work towards "material solutions" in Gaza.
Republicans, on the other hand, turned another page in their playbook of hateful gender-based character assassinations and misogynistic "jokes." Stephen Miller, a former Trump adviser tweeted - "She actually chose Tampon Tim" - in reference to Walz's signing a law requiring public schools to provide free menstrual products in bathrooms used by students in the 4th - 12th grades.
Chaya Raichik, the footsoldier of the patriarchy behind far-right Libs of Tik Tok social media account, upped the ante considerably by posting:
With over 28K "love" reactions, #TamponTim made quite a splash on X and inspired much guffawing and high fives among conservatives, who picked it up and ran with it.
All of the worst insults seem to revolve around femaleness/femininity. Despite Always’ fempowerment ad campaign, few boys/men and even girls, would like to be seen as throwing “like a girl.” Weak people – usually men/male – are “pussies,” and when they are jerks (which, duh, default!), they are “douches” or more formally, “douche bags.” Strong folks have “balls” – of course, associated with maleness/masculinity. And any woman who’s unamiable to male desire (be it personal, sexual, professional) is a bitch or “on the rag” or both.
Within these insults, both traditional sexism – the privileging of male/masculinity over female/femininity – AND oppositional sexism – the acceptance of femininity as “OK” in women, but not in men (and vice versa for masculinity) – are on clear display.
Transgender activist and author Julia Serrano helps us understand how this war on women is different from traditional misogyny, attacking femininity writ large rather than women themselves. This allows for individual women to excel and achieve, and give the appearance of a far more equal society.
I have called this book Whipping Girl to highlight the ways in which people who are feminine, whether they be female, male, and/or transgender, are almost universally demeaned compared with their masculine counterparts.” (Serrano, 2016, p. 5).
According to Serrano, traditional and oppositional meet and compound to form trans-misogyny which, like misogynoir, highlights how misogyny targeted to those who are transgender and/or black is made different (and, perhaps worse) than that experienced by cisgender white women.
Serrano encourages feminism to not only embrace femininity, but also leverage it to “change the world!” I hear a bit of the killjoy maxim that titles this post in Serrano’s (2016) “Barrette Manifesto:”
You may think it is funny, but it's no joke. "Girl stuff" is dangerous, so let's use it to our advantage... Because if construction workers were man enough to wear skirts and heels, they wouldn't whistle at women who pass by... And if presidents and generals were man enough to wear lip gloss and mascara, they wouldn't have to prove their penis size by going to war all the time.
Because male pride is not really about pride. It's about fear - the fear of being seen as feminine. And that's why "girl stuff" is so dangerous. And as long as most men remain deathly afraid of it, they'll continue to take it out on the rest of us. (p. 316)
Serrano encourages the fight to be against gender entitlement rather than gender performance. If masculinity is not privileged above femininity, we not only fulfill bell hooks’ aim of feminism – to “simply put,” end sexism – but also free masculinity and femininity to be expressed by any, and every, body.
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