The term “rebranding” is one that sends shudders up the spine of most sensible people, bringing up memories of “New Coke” and the Sci-Fi Channel changing its name to a slang term for syphilis. Rebranding suggests many things – business, profits, men with more money than understanding of how the world works – but until recently, I’d never heard the term used in relation to feminism.

 

That would be silly, right? Why would anyone want to treat an equal rights movement like a soft drinks company in need of a shiny new logo?

 

Step forward Vitamin W, a “women owned media platform”, who announced a contest to “rebrand feminism”, with a $2000 cash prize for the lucky winner. The given task was to make feminism “relevant and meaningful to everyone”, because apparently combating gender based discrimination is too stuffy and old fashioned in our hip and modern new world. This contest, understandably, annoyed a few people, myself included, and our combined online rage led to one of the contest’s sponsors withdrawing from the competition.

 

The contest is still going forward, and sadly it’s not the only recent instance of a decades old ever evolving movement being used like a Pinterest board.

 

Hilariously, and apparently without a modicum of irony, Elle Magazine, famous for airbrushing models and publishing articles entitled  “How To Be Thinner”, have jumped on the rebranding bandwagon, inviting such noted feminists as Vagenda Magazine to contribute. This is also pretty ironic for Vagenda, a website that made its name in criticising women’s magazines for their internalised misogyny, but hey, a little exposure is worth the blatant hypocrisy.

 

Then there’s “We Are The XX”, which claims to be “feminism for this generation” and asks feminists globally to unite under the banner of magic markers and Instagram photos to fight for our rights, or something (their objectives are vague and meaningless). Setting aside the fact that their cutesy name implies gender is biological, their aims’ continued focus on making feminism more accessible to men exemplifies everything wrong with these attempts to turn feminism into a project.

 

Feminism doesn’t need to be fun, cool, funny, pretty or sexy, and it certainly doesn’t need to hand out cookies to male allies. Congratulations on realising I’m a human being worthy of respect, guys.

Generations of women worldwide, across the lines of gender, race, sexuality, education, disability, religion and everything in between have spent decades fighting against the sneers of “Feminazi” and “slut” in order to claim the most basic human rights for all. They managed all that with great struggles, educating others and demanding their voices be heard. When women decide that feminism needs a makeover like it’s a fairy tale maid sitting on a pumpkin, they’re basically admitting that they believe all the slander and stereotypes are true, and that they’re something to be ashamed of.

 

It shouldn’t need to be said but apparently I must; when some clueless columnist or anonymous twit with an unpronounceable Twitter name says feminism is too mean or humourless, they’re the ones with the problem, not feminism.

 

The figures trying to push this corporate style jazz-up of feminism usually fit the same narrow mould reserved for the kind of women that mainstream publications allow to discuss the icky women’s rights issues: most often white, middle class, cis, and decidedly non-threatening. They’ll throw in jokes about pubic waxing now and then and ask what the big deal is with tiny pants. Their feminist narrative is one where anger can occasionally be seen, but it’s distinctly more palatable than the less mainstream side of the blogosphere.

 

A tiny percentage of women trying to rebrand feminism doesn’t make it more inclusive for the voices the movement desperately needs to amplify – women of colour, trans women (binary and non-binary), disabled women, the working class, non-university educated women, and so on. Branding something as fluid and evolving as feminism takes a huge step away from challenging damaging cultural narratives and towards appeasing them.

 

While wanting to break down the stereotypes that keep women from identifying as feminist is an admirable aim, it can’t be done if you essentially treat the movement like a project on Grand Designs. A lick of paint and some chandeliers won’t make feminism appealing because it’s not some trendy fad that needs to pander in the most condescending manner possible. If a serious effort to make feminism inclusive and progressive is to be made, it probably shouldn’t be done in between airbrushed pages on being nice and skinny. Just a thought.