My Problem with "Basic Girls"

The season for pumpkin spice lattes and yoga pants are upon us. Girls will start to bust out their North Face jackets and Uggs and head to Bath & Body Works to buy every pumpkin scented product. The world will be swarmed with what we refer to as "basic girls" or "basic bitches".

But what the hell is wrong with that (besides the horrible connotation that the word "basic" has and the extremely demeaning effects of the word "bitch")? 1. Starbucks is the effing nectar of the gods, don't you dare disagree with me and 2. Pumpkin spice is scientifically proven to be the most delicious scent in the universe. Why are we belittling girls that hop on popular trends or who genuinely appreciate pumpkins as their favorite species of squash?

Here's my beef with this idiotic phrase:

1. The term "basic girl" is used to lump all girls together in order to belittle them for not being "unique".

Just because someone enjoys popular trends or is a bit consumerist doesn't mean they are less original. Who knows...maybe the girl you judge for drinking Starbucks every day writes a kick ass feminist blog and puts herself through school...

Plus, a woman doesn't have to be 100% unique to be valued. For Christ's sake, is everything that you do a product of your own cute, special, little original mind? No. So step back.

Guys are using this idea of being "basic" to strip women of their idiosyncratic personalities in order to value them less. Or they value the "basic" girl because she seemingly has less opinions and easily follows the crowd.

Check out this snippet from an article...:

" Pro: She's loyal, albeit bordering on needy.

Pro: She's malleable, like silly putty or tofu. If you're looking for a predictable sidekick to live out your cookie cutter existence with, the basic bitch is your girl."

Malleable. Awesome. I love equating women to silly putty that I can form to do whatever I want and not respect boundaries whatsoever.

and this one: 

"By getting some actual opinions, innovative ideas, high self confidence, and a grasp of reality, then you're getting somewhere! Like what you want to like! Have lame hobbies, be goofy, be YOU! You can fight this."

~*~be goofy~*~ All respectable women are so goofy and fun and have cute little quirks and hobbies and are merely here to be manifestations of their originality and difference from other women.

PLOT TWIST: these quotes were written by women. Women calling other women opinion-less squishy balls of useless putty. What a win for feminism! 

2. There's a serious racial difference between "basic girl" and "basic bitch/hoe".

While the term "basic girl" evokes the image of a white female, the even more derogatory term "basic bitch/hoe" is racialized and evokes the image of a black female. Just check out these 2 different definitions from Urban Dictionary:

So this term enforces the power differential between white and black women. White women are bubbly little rays of sunshine that can't think for themselves while black women are literally degraded for their sexuality and bodies. Plus, the term "basic bitch" originated from black rappers Lil Duval and The Game. White youth have yet again taken a piece of black culture that truly isn't ours and turned it into something that is less harmful for us (specifically white women) than it is for the black community (specifically black women).

3. It mocks women who uphold the stereotypes of their gender. 

A girl that chooses to wear pink, bake cookies, and go shopping shouldn't be valued any less than a girl who wears combat boots and refuses to wear makeup. That's the whole damn point of feminism, to allow other women to make choices that you might not necessarily agree with, to support them, and to value them as equally as other women and men.

The whole "she wears short skirts and I wear t-shirts" crap is absurd. It promotes girl hate which just tears us all down and the patriarchy wins! Do not value another woman less because she enjoys stereotypical female things - leave that to the misogynistic chauvinists that we are trying to eradicate in the 2015 feminist uprising.

4. It takes feminized actions, hobbies, trends, or objects and turns them into something worth mocking and not taken seriously. 

1. Baking - You're so basic. What? Do you need to bake food to stay alive or something? That's so unoriginal of you to do nice things for your neighbors. Ew. 
2. Decorating your house for fall - So. Basic. God who do you think you are trying to get festive about the seasons and holidays? That's so overdone. 
3. Taking a picture in your cute new boots - Jeeze. Where do you get off having that much confidence and feeling good about your appearance/outfit for the day? 
4. Consulting your friends on what to wear out tonight - Ugh. Like can you not think for yourself? Do your friends really mean that much to you? You actually hangout with girls whose opinion you value? Lame. 

This whole "basic bitch" trope even takes non-feminized things and makes them unacceptable for women. Like wtf am I not allowed to do if I don't want to be called a "basic bitch"? The lists I've read online include: using Mason jars for storage (uh, but recycling is awesome?), owning a toaster (BUT TOAST IS DELICIOUS), and owning a full length mirror (sorry, women can only own half length mirrors). 

The amount of sarcasm in this post has thoroughly exhausted me. I rest my case.