For some women in China, “Barbie” is more than just a movie — it’s also a litmus test for their partner’s views on feminism and patriarchy.
The movie has prompted intense social media discussion online, media outlets Sixth Tone and the China Project reported this week, prompting women to discuss their own dating experiences.
One user on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu — a photo-sharing site similar to Instagram that’s mostly used by Gen Z women — even shared a guide on Monday for how women can test their boyfriends based on their reaction to the film.
According to the guide, if a man shows hatred for “Barbie” and slams female directors after they leave the theatre, then this man is “stingy” and a “toxic chauvinist,” according to Insider’s translation of the post. Conversely, if a man understands even half of the movie’s themes, “then he is likely a normal guy with normal values and stable emotions,” the user wrote.
Women in the US are doing that too.
I guess it works, to a point. If your man throws a Shapiro-esque fit over this movie he probably isn’t great to be around the rest of the time.
Alternatively, if your SO doesn’t think you can be together because you don’t like a movie, they probably are the wrong person to be dating.
Is it cool if I just don’t watch it? It doesn’t really appeal to me.
Same, I just can’t bring myself to care about a movie that’s about toys I have zero nostalgia for.
For those who saw the movie: do you think this test is valid?
Correct. Honestly, if a dude gets offended by a movie that says “hey dude, learn how to love and value yourself without basing all of your sense of self on your romantic relationship to a woman and you’ll be much happier”, they are NOT a catch at all and they need to shed some shit about their lives.
My thought while watching the movie was:
Wow this “patriarchy” concept is intriguing. It seems like it would be really useful if I hadn’t gone through life avoiding any kind of power or responsibility.
Much like white privilege, one of the things that makes patriarchy and matriarchy so insidious is that you do not have to directly engage in it in order to benefit from it if you look like you belong to the gender in charge
I would like to think that my biggest accomplishments (at a major tech company for 10+ years) happened through making good technical/ideological arguments, listening to people’s problems, and telling computers how to fix them, rather than my physical appearance. Whenever they asked me to be a manager, I was like “ugh, no that sounds awful.”
Then after 15 months of COVID isolation, I burned out and left. Now I’m thinking it’d be nice if I’d learned how to approach women and do standard masculine things. The world doesn’t just give you sex for excelling in school/work.
I guess my point is that a patriarchal society makes it difficult for men who don’t actively pursue power over others to form relationships.
The patriarchy is what enabled and encouraged you to have an interest and education in computer science in the first place :) if you had been born in a woman’s body in the same time period, you would have been discouraged from that path passively through cultural messaging and actively by your peers and mentors–all decisions made by men. To this day, men outnumber women in STEM fields by roughly a 5-to-2 ratio, and that number is only where it is as a result of deliberate outreach to women of all ages.
I’m not trying to detract from your work ethic or the quality of the output you produced or how hard you had to work to get to where you are-- I’m just saying that if you were a woman, it would have been that much harder, and that is how you benefited from the patriarchy without actively participating from it.
I thought the movie criticizes both extreme feminism and male chauvinism, or did I watch a different Barbie movie?
Yeah. Barbie Was not the good guy in the Barbie movie, right? Like, even in the end they admit that they will not give the Kens true equality, just enough that they basically won’t revolt again. People here calling Barbie a feminist icon, what movie were you watching?
I take slight issue with your phrasing. “Extreme feminism” isn’t an issue, that’s like saying extreme racial equality is an issue. Feminism isn’t about female superiority, it’s about gender equality. The movie does not criticize extreme feminism, it criticizes chauvinism, whether male or female.
“Extreme feminism” isn’t an issue, that’s like saying extreme racial equality is an issue.
There was a time during the 2010s when third-wave feminism was pushing things too far and trying to create divisive splits on subjects that really didn’t need them, like Atheism+ and a bunch of other things with a plus sign tacked on to it. Fortunately, once the #MeToo movement picked up speed, they switched gears to more important things.
So, yes, you can have an extreme view on anything, even feminism.
