Feminism

2005cultural topicclassic

Published August 20, 2026

Feminism as an internet topic covers the online spread of feminist activism through 2000s blog networks, the memes born from gender debate on the web like the Bechdel Test, and the harassment campaigns and hoaxes that came out of the backlash.

feminism memesgender discourse memesculture war memesmanosphere memessocial justice memes

Overview

Feminism as an internet subject covers both the online organizing of the feminist movement and the memes, hoaxes and flame wars that grew out of gender debate on the web. On the pro side, blogs like Jezebel, Feministing and The F Word built large audiences through the late 2000s1. On the reaction side, users on Body Building Forums, Reddit and the wider Manosphere pushed back with their own memes and campaigns2.

The topic overlaps with several standalone meme entries, including the Bechdel Test, the older "There are No Girls on the Internet" adage, and the online harassment of games critic Anita Sarkeesian7.

Origin & Background

Platform
Blogs / Tumblr (viral spread)
Date
2005

Feminist writing moved online in the late 1990s as the blogosphere grew, with Jezebel and Feministing anchoring the space through the 2000s1. The Bechdel Test, one of the earliest widely shared feminist internet memes, came from Alison Bechdel's 1985 comic Dykes to Watch Out For and appeared online on August 16th, 2005 when Bechdel posted the strip to Flickr and her Blogspot3. The site bechdeltest.com launched on April 11th, 2010 to track which films pass the test's three rules4.

The older joke "There are No Girls on the Internet" traces back to Usenet and text-based MUDs of the early 1990s, where male players routinely posed as women to solicit gifts or attention. Sociologist Amy Bruckman documented the practice in her 1993 paper "Gender Swapping on the Internet"5.

How It Spread

In 2012, video essayist Anita Sarkeesian ran a Kickstarter to fund Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, and the harassment campaign that followed, including a Newgrounds flash game called "Beat up Anita Sarkeesian" that was pulled within a day, made her a frequently cited example of online misogyny in that era7.

On March 15th, 2014, Thought Catalog published "5 Things Women Need To Do In Their 20's (Or Else The Suffragists Died For Nothing)" under the byline Anne Gus6. The same day, a Body Building Forums poster going by AryanofValhalla claimed the essay was a satire he had submitted under the pen name, and the story was picked up by mainstream news outlets before Thought Catalog editor Chrissy Stockton pushed back on the satire framing three days later6.

On November 12th, 2014, TIME Magazine put "feminism" on its annual word banishment poll alongside "bae" and "basic," a choice that drew heavy backlash7. Tumblr and Twitter became the main hubs for feminist meme content in the mid 2010s, with the earlier blog era winding down1.

How to Use This Meme

"Feminism" is typically invoked online in two directions. Feminist users often deploy the term through shared image macros, quote posts and template jokes about media tropes, drawing on formats like the Bechdel Test to score films and games4. Counter-communities in the Manosphere commonly use the same word as a punchline in reaction memes and satirical posts, a pattern the Anne Gus hoax made unusually visible6.

Frequently Asked Questions