Since when did cupcakes become the international symbol of womankind? Because cupcake themed international women’s day events are being promoted everywhere this week by Oxfam and Concern, by, ironically the University of Sussex, home of many a top feminist academic, and possibly even more ironically, by Trafford Council as part of their triple whammy IWD, Olympics and cupcakes event.
A pub in Nottingham is offering cupcakes along with live music – people, why not a free G&T, surely more appropriate than blinkin’ cupcakes? And in case you thought this was a particularly British disease, you can get free cupcakes this week in Chicago too, although to be fair the Australians offer some relief in the form of Cupcake: A Zombie Lesbian Musical.
Why does this fetishisation of cupcakes make me so annoyed? Cupcakes are just so twee-ly, coyly, ‘ooh no I really shouldn’t’-ly, pink and fluffily, everything that I think feminism is not. It’s feminism-lite, feminism as consumption and ‘me time’ (grr), rather than feminism as power and politics and equal pay. Or in other words:
Because these cupcakes – mark my words, feminists – these trendy little cupcakes are the thin end of the wedge. It will start with cupcakes and it will end in vaginoplasty.
