The Next Waves Of Feminism -The Toast

The Next Waves Of Feminism

ByDaniel Mallory Ortberg

on December 18, 2014 in Feminism

Fourth wave – All regular women will become Catwomen. All Catwomen will become twenty feet tall and perch upon thrones of pearl and of onyx. All cats will gain the ability to laugh like humans, but not to speak.

Fifth wave – The same as the fourth wave, but all Goombas are replaced by Buzzy Beetles, and all enemies walk faster; all of the elevator-style lifts are about sixty-percent of their original size, while Firebars appear in all possible locations

Sixth wave – Straight cis men will have evolved into a Morlock-like species of sled dog that lead sleighs loaded down with ice queens in fur capes across a frozen landscape. There will be forty-seven new genders, one of which is capable of breathing fire. None of them will be able to agree upon whether or not Game of Thrones was feminist.

Seventh wave – The seventh wave of feminism will take place in a dimension catty-corner to our own, and we will not notice it, except for two junior staffers at the Large Hadron Collider.

Eighth wave – Dance-off.

Ninth wave – Every feminist from the second wave will rise reanimated from the grave and terrorize the living. Millions will perish.

Tenth wave – One of the Seven Worthies will wield the sword of the King Under The Mountain, waking Andrea Dworkin from her dreamless sleep beneath the Sunless Sea.

Eleventh wave – Remember those massive, eternal, Olympus-sized waves on the black-hole planet on Interstellar that killed the astronaut who was also the bearded guy in the Hunger Games? Like that.

Mallory is an Editor of The Toast.

Comments (30)

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+116 Vote up Vote down

mabissam 121p · 536 weeks ago

And for every wave, someone to say "Told you so."

+27 Vote up Vote down

Aimee · 536 weeks ago

I believe I personally shall get a head start on the 6th wave by purchasing several gigantic faux fur coats now, and stocking up on dog collars.

+52 Vote up Vote down

zachariahary 147p · 536 weeks ago

So I realize this is only peripherally related to this hilarious post, but what is up with that dude in Interstellar? He's such a goober! He just freakin' stands there looking around going "Uhr burh gosh golly big wave, Anne Hathaway in trouble oh jeez, uhhh robot go save her?" And then continues to dither, basically walking quickly in circles waving his hands in front of his face, directly next to the open space ship door until the robot has finished saving Anne and is all "Whew, she's safe. Wowzers that was stressful. So... should I also get into the OH FUCK WAVE!" And, uh. Then he's dead.
All I'm saying is I'm glad that dude's genes were not ultimately involved in any restart-humanity-through-space-colony scheme.

6 replies · active 536 weeks ago

+43 Vote up Vote down

moxycrimefighter 112p · 536 weeks ago

That whole wave planet was the entire reason I wanted to see Interstellar because it looked trippy as hell so imagine how delighted I was when that happened 5 minutes in and then the movie continued on for 11 more hours. I greatly sympathized with dude left on the main ship.

+29 Vote up Vote down

GoatseFanfic 120p · 536 weeks ago

The secret plot to Interstellar is that there was nothing really wrong with the crops and it was all an elaborate prank to shoot those guys off the planet forever.

+13 Vote up Vote down

thedaela 124p · 536 weeks ago

This actually...makes more sense? I'm still pondering but this seems to solve a lot.

Michael Caine wasn't being a dick. He was just saving the world from the stupidity of a guy who would scream, "Don't leave! Stay! Stay!" to his old self, then promptly send his old self gravity-directions to enable himself to leave.

Plotholes solved!

+7 Vote up Vote down

Kateeeee · 536 weeks ago

CAN WE TALK ABOUT WHY OKRA WAS AN ERSTWHILE STAPLE CROP?!?!?!

+8 Vote up Vote down

pretty_monster · 536 weeks ago

YES WE CAN! the point at which they expected me to care that okra was going to become extinct was when i stopped caring about the movie.

which meant i was well seething and prepared (11 million hours later!!!) to stand up and declare "I AM SO DONE WITH THIS SHIT!" when hathaway started crying about true love blah blah blah (much to my partner's horror.). i came for McConaughey In Space and got "love will save us all". and also okra.

+6 Vote up Vote down

zachariahary 147p · 536 weeks ago

Ahah I kinda loved it when Hathaway suddenly argues for what they should do based on, like, the quantum mechanics of love or whatever. Because while she ended up being totally right, at the time it came completely out of left field. I thought the rest of the crew was remarkably open minded about it too. They calmly agreed that, no, they weren't going to do that, but they weren't like, "One of the scientists on our save-humanity-space-mission has just made a pseudo-scientific argument for us changing course because of her trans-galactic love connection with this dude she hasn't seen for years. So... that's obviously nonsense. She has the space madness. And she's got it bad."

Also liked how for the first 20 minutes it's 'all that remains of humanity are near subsistence level dust bowl farmers with Ford trucks' and then it's all 'haha jk NASA is totally still around and there are space ships. WHOOSH let's go through a worm hole!'

+24 Vote up Vote down

molly 92p · 536 weeks ago

i couldn't even beat the first level of super mario hard mode when fifth wave comes around i guess i'm fucked.

1 reply · active 536 weeks ago

+14 Vote up Vote down

nicoledieker 113p · 536 weeks ago

It is going to be a sad day when people don't automatically get that reference. :(

+3 Vote up Vote down

Megan · 536 weeks ago

Claws out for eight wave!

+21 Vote up Vote down

ljarnseth 110p · 536 weeks ago

I could see myself stuck in that sixth wave. I'd be protesting the fur capes and the other ice queens would roll their eyes because "the fur thing is not what we are all about, here, right now."

+47 Vote up Vote down

m98widow 112p · 536 weeks ago

It's a dance off!

+38 Vote up Vote down

@OpOnions · 536 weeks ago

also a group of people for each wave to say, "back in MY wave"

(I'd like to formally petition for my Morlock name to be Morlock-from-Orlock)

+10 Vote up Vote down

Androgyne-Pirate · 536 weeks ago

I am the gender that breathes fire. Thank you for representing us in your media, oxygenfactory.

(I have neither watched nor read Game of Thrones, but I bet if I did I'd have really strong opinions about whether or not it's feminist).

+5 Vote up Vote down

Josephina Urguilla · 536 weeks ago

Pop feminism rocks like rip tides suck!

1 reply · active 536 weeks ago

+2 Vote up Vote down

Sunshine · 536 weeks ago

Pop rocks feminism?

+58 Vote up Vote down

damanoid 134p · 536 weeks ago

In an hour unlooked for by Men this doom befell. Then suddenly fire burst forth from the Meneltarma, and there came a mighty wave and a great tumult of the earth, and Númenor went down into the sea, with all its halls and its towers and its tombs and its riches and its houses and its dogs and its ferrets and its barbecues and its snowblowers and its action figures and its body sprays and its heteronormativity and its light beer and its taco salads; all vanished forever beneath the wave.

And last of all the mounting wave, green and cold and plumed with foam, took to its bosom Chad Torgelson, fairer than ivory or pearls, who strove too late to reach the southwest corner of the basement, and who cried out to the heavens: 'Dames! Who can figure them?' But the water overtook him, and his cry was lost in the roaring of the wind. Alas for Númenor of the Kings.

3 replies · active 536 weeks ago

+6 Vote up Vote down

raqueue 115p · 536 weeks ago

I cannot express the perfection of this.

+8 Vote up Vote down

jenavira 117p · 536 weeks ago

aaaaand this is why The Toast is my Internet home

+5 Vote up Vote down

Loony_Lovegood · 536 weeks ago

Marry me? I make really good omelettes!

+21 Vote up Vote down

thegirlfrommarz 100p · 536 weeks ago

I would suggest that we skip straight to the Eighth Wave (as I have both moves and a Patriarchy that need busting), but I'm looking forward to sitting on my jewelled throne as a 20 foot tall Catwoman, so maybe we should just take them in order.

The Tenth wave was of course predicted by Tennyson when he wrote of Dworkin:
There hath she lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon MRAs in her sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by men and misandrists to be seen,
In roaring she shall rise and on the surface die.

He should have written "rule" instead of "die" in that last line of course, but you can't expect accuracy from a man.

1 reply · active 536 weeks ago

+9 Vote up Vote down

His Prettiest Eye · 536 weeks ago

"I have both moves and a Patriarchy that needs busting"

Shirt please. Will contribute to kickstarter.

+1 Vote up Vote down

Griff · 536 weeks ago

I know this is pretty satirical, but I'm still curious what you folks will think. I found a poll that asks wether or not it's feminist to get married, and it's pretty much 50/50. I was really surprised cause I never considered marriage to be non-feminest. I guess I'm just a little confused haha.

Here's a link to the poll, feel free to vote on it yourself.
http://www.statisfy.co/q/426

+11 Vote up Vote down

leslieellenjones 109p · 536 weeks ago

I used to have a cat who did, indeed, laugh like me. (Or rather, she made a weird non-meowy sound that I finally realized was her copy-catting my laugh.) It was, quite frankly, a little creepy. Especially when she started laughing at the X Files. The Fourth Wave arrived circa 1994.

+10 Vote up Vote down

Simone · 534 weeks ago

I'm cool with everything except the reawakening of Andrea Dworkin, trans exclusionary feminists should be left to eternal slumber.
In lieu of this event, Maya Angelou will rise from the grave, bringing all those worthy to a realm ruled by Valkyries, where the sun never sleeps and obnoxious white men toil their days away in salt mines.

1 reply · active 532 weeks ago

+3 Vote up Vote down

shellygrrl 98p · 532 weeks ago

MUCH BETTER.

And there will be much dancing on the graves of TERFs.

+4 Vote up Vote down

paradoxius 53p · 530 weeks ago

Oh man. Changing gender identity to "dragon" to get in on that sixth wave fire-breathing action!

+1 Vote up Vote down

abbybyrd 9p · 510 weeks ago

One of the best things I have ever seen.

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