You need to follow Feminist Bro, a hilarious new parody Twitter account
We just found the Twitter account of our feminist dreams. Feminist Bro, created last week by New York-based writer and comedian Emily Winter, is a parody account that mocks a particular type of feminist: the male feminist. While men can be (and are) feminists, more than a few use feminism as a way to mask unpleasant behavior, still silencing women’s voices or continuing to objectify them.
HelloGiggles chatted with Emily over email, and she explained hilarious way Feminist Bro came to life. It all started at a comedy show, where female and LGBTQ comics were supposed to perform their acts as straight men.
“I began preparing jokes as a male feminist who’s also a douchebag,” she said in an email. “I was nervous the audience wouldn’t connect to him, but the character really worked. It made me think I’m not the only one to notice a proliferation of men who agree with feminist ideas, but live as misogynists.”
Then she began tweeting out her character’s jokes on her own Twitter account, but just last week gave Feminist Bro an account of his own.
“The type of person this character represents are straight men who identify as feminist, but have no intention of putting feminist ideas into practice,” Emily told us. “He’s the guy who agrees that objectification has damaging effects on women, but goes to strip clubs. He believes in equal pay, but would object to a pay cut to even out wage distribution in his own workplace. Sometimes he’s the guy who’s simply a straight up misogynist, but calls himself a ‘feminist’ to get women to sleep with him.”
The difference between Emily’s character and men who truly live as feminists is simple: one believes wholeheartedly in equality while the other “jumps ship” when he finds out that means he’ll have to sacrifice some of his privilege.
Feminist Bro’s adventures are just getting started, and Emily has high hopes. “I hope he reaches a lot of people at the intersection of feminism and comedy,” she says. “A fellow feminist comedian commented that one of his tweets was ‘too real,’ and that made me feel like I’m on the right track.”