Kim Kardashian has, believe it or not, done a lot of things that us feminists have been able to applaud. She’s unapologetic about her body; she’s a successful businesswoman in her own right, whether you like to admit it or not; and let’s not forget she was the first of the Kardashians to publicly and openly support Caitlyn Jenner during her transition. Listen—you don’t have to have a degree in gender studies to be a feminist. You don’t even have to be well-educated to be a feminist; the feminist movement doesn’t discriminate. If someone with as much influence as Kim Kardashian is on our side, we are in full support.
But despite her actions, it seems as if Kim might have a little ways to go before we can consider her a feminist. At the BlogHer 2016 conference in LA yesterday, she gave a keynote where she basically called feminism nothing but a label. “Everyone always says, are you a feminist?,” she said. “And I don’t think that I am.”
And the reason she gave makes us cringe just a little. (Actually, a lot.) “I do what makes me happy and I want women to be confident and I’m so supportive of women…” she explained, “But I’m not the ‘free the nipple’-type girl.”
Wait, what? Somebody please explain to Kim what feminism is, because it’s about more than just nipple freeing—you can be a feminist whether you’re all about freeing your nipple or whether you’d rather not, thank you very much. Kim has benefited significantly from the feminist movement, but the most she’ll admit is, “I guess people would call me a feminist.” You can do better, Kim.