I have mixed feelings about Tomi Lahren. It's safe to say many students at UNLV do. Whether it's, "Ugh, why did she have to go here? She is not representative of an average UNLV student," or "Wow, she's such a strong independent woman, fighting for everything but strong independent women." It's all very complicated when it comes to Tomi. If I were a twenty-something conservative, she'd probably be my hero. But alas, I am as my grandfather calls me, "his little liberal," and will forever aspire to be as bad ass as Sophia Bush.
Recently, however, I watched one of Tomi's videos for a reason other than to get my blood pressure up so high that I'd actually feel like exercising (gross). I watched it because the title of her video was, "Some final thoughts for the ladies. I get you because I am you." I laughed when I read this. While yes, Tomi identifies publicly as a female which makes her a "lady" in this society, all she has ever done in her previous videos is criticize, patronize and mock anything remotely feminist. But here, in this video, she slipped up.
"It's not easy being a girl these days. No, not for the reasons the feminists and Hillary preach about, no, but we are caught between a rock and a hard place. If you don't act like a slut, you're a prude. If you act like a slut, you're a slut. The options are limited, but I'm here to tell you to F those categories. Do you. Be you," she says in this video. Again, I laugh.
Those actually are some of the ideas feminists and Hillary preach about. Tomi just hasn't been listening. Whether or not she knows it, she just agreed with a feminist stance.
She went to UNLV, so I know she at least had to take one literature class. She must've read "The Scarlet Letter," "Jane Eyre," "The Awakening," "Anna Karenina," "Tess of the d'Ubervilles," or "Madame Bovary." All featuring women who are punished in some way for having sex. Whether for being "too frigid" and following the narrative of The Madonna or being "too sexual" and following the persona of The Whore.
Let's say she didn't take a literature class, perhaps she tested out of it somehow, she majored in broadcast journalism and political science, and if nothing else, the basis for all persuasion, arguments and other skills Tomi is known for have a base in rhetoric. What is the same about all rhetoric classes you ask? Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. It would have been extremely difficult for her to avoid learning about an Ancient Greek myth or two where there are countless examples of women chastised for being sexual. Aphrodite, Medusa, Pandora and Helen of Troy are a few examples.
If nothing else, Tomi is a Christian conservative who has sat through enough classes at Sunday school to know about the genesis of humanity. It was Eve, whose curiosity, often a metaphor for sexuality or mystery in mythology, forced her and Adam out of the Garden of Eden and into the world with all of its plagues, worries and dangers.
It is obvious from her video that she sees it still happening today. She doesn't like that this is happening. She wills her viewers to just be themselves and not to worry about the people who will judge them. So, why then, is she pushing the very narrative that forces women into the role of either The Madonna or The Whore in all of her other videos? Why is she belittling the very movement that wants to end this dichotomy of saint versus sinner? If she is, as she says, like us, why won't she fight for us?
Perhaps she cannot conceptualize that slut shaming is a feminist issue. Perhaps she has been fed conservative views since she was a child, like I was, but unlike me, never dared to question them, and learn, grow and develop her own opinions that epitomize her core values and beliefs. Maybe no one ever explained to her that it's okay to want equal rights for women, and still support the military, or that it's okay to want equal rights for women and still want to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. You can be a feminist with, dare I say, liberal social views, and still have conservative fiscal views. There's no feminist handbook that will chastise you for it.
Whatever Tomi's reason for spreading the dreaded "feminist agenda," indirectly, or perhaps directly, I'm glad she finally found that part of herself, a part I believe lies inside every woman, that wants equal rights. It is my belief that all women, deep inside, even though it may be unrecognized due to internalized oppression or ignorance to current events, want to be valued as more than a sex object, want to be respected because they are intelligent, want to earn as much money as a male coworker for working in the same occupation, want to be able to control their bodies, because ultimately it is their body and theirs alone, and want to be able to walk down the street at night without their keys between their fingers and their pepper spray at close reach in their bag "just in case."
Tomi Lahren is complicated. Most of her videos make me want to mail her boxes and boxes of feminist theory books, the complete works of the history of racism and blatant kindness manuals, but I'm developing a hypothesis. I'm an English major, not a science major, and barely passed anatomy because we had to dissect a gross cat we named Katniss, so I'm not an expert with hypotheses. However, maybe a year from now, maybe 20 years from now, maybe when we're old and gray, someone will find evidence in Tomi's personal journals, but mark my words: Tomi Lahren is a feminist. She just has to unlearn the years and years of ignorant brainwashing that makes her believe racism in America doesn't exist, before she can realize it. But in my head, I picture us at a UNLV reunion in our arch-supported shoes, and glasses so thick they're basically windows, laughing and bonding over the fact that in the end, she was a liberal snowflake all along.
