Post Feminist TikTok - Ode To Nuance
8 July 2025



My life is a mess. Welcome.

Maybe this is my last creative outburst before I finally put my head in the oven.

I’m deconstructing and deconstructing and here we are, deconstructing Post Feminist TikTok.

Of course I am a feminist. I am the first of 3 daughters. My parents always confused my overwhelming femininity (I refused to wear trousers to school for the first 9 years of my life, and just wanted skirts) with some made up inability to drive. That being said, I am a very decent driver. I drive fast and messily like I do everything else - yet I am very safe and fine. Again, see how I feel the urge to defend myself? That’s why I have a trans cowboy on my arm, defending my valued and precious femininity from my family of tomboys and the sexist assumptions that stem from it.

When I was 19, I went home to South Italy from uni in London to attend my little sister’s first communion. My dad and I met this random ass man somewhere outside the church. My dad told him “Ah, yes, it’s my little one’s communion. This one is my big one”, pointing at me. The man asked “Ah, you have 2 daughters?”. My dad replied, proud (because he’s a feminist himself and never was very comfortable around men) “I have 3 daughters, actually!”. The random ass man, scoffed, looked down, shook his head, expressing some weird sorrow and condolence for the situation. “What can you do?” he said “As long as they’re healthy!”. My dad looked at me, in disbelief.

Of course I am a feminist. Yet, I’m not sure the post feminist tik tok algorithm I’ve carefully curated actually is. The algorithm created this validating loop for me, where being with a “well behaved” man who performs in feminist ways (just by being decent, kind and not bothering me too much for being the way I am, which - again, should be the bare minimum) was enough. A memefyable, simple, to-serve-at-parties life. 

Yet, I am a complex human. I'm a shy person, I struggle in groups of people who don't understand me, and I hate having to explain myself to random passersby or colleagues or people I don’t have time to have a beer and a chat about philosophy with, really.

Like my job. People don’t understand why I don’t value sunlight and a fancy office and limitless holidays, but I value my weird ass job and everything it takes away from me because I find it stimulating.

And that’s the key. People will never understand what “stimulating” feels like inside my head. I am so easily bored. Be me for a day.

Yet, my post feminist algorithm wouldn’t actually approve of what I care about.

Because complexity and nuance ruin simple storytelling and punchlines.

I was having beers with my colleagues, and talking about some of the most horrible, politically incorrect, sexist, slimey, disgusting people in our office (advertising, baby).

And two of my male, friendly, kind, decent colleagues were expressing their discomfort at having these men constantly looking at them to validate their disgusting jokes. Especially the most junior in the crowd, who had to disappoint their superior by defending their ideals, seemed very hurt by this.

I said I have a lot of empathy for men when it comes to that, having to "choose" between the simple route of pretending to laugh and staying close to their ideals. Not laughing at sexist remarks and making one back, while knowing that’s expected of you from your superiors, can be really difficult, I imagined.

The post feminist crowd booed me. “How dare you have empathy for men.” Ex-fucking-cuse me. Watch me. I get that my empathy is not memefyable. Not a cheap joke, the punchline doesn’t land. But I am an idealist, and memes don’t solve shit.

So, I’m a feminist, and I have empathy for the men who deserve it, and go to therapy, and now excuse me but I have to go teach my algorithm a thing or two.