Bimbos are back. Did Meghan Markle miss the memo?

There’s been a bimbofication reclamation. Nearly two decades ago, bimbo was used to describe your everyday 2000s “it girl”: Elle Woods, Regina George, and the “Bimbo Summit” that was Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Lindsay Lohan photographed in the front seat of Hilton’s Mercedes-Benz. Now, however, bimbo has taken on a new meaning – one that is inclusive, hyperfeminine, anti-capitalist, and an act of resistance. How did we get here, and did we lose Meghan Markle along the way?

This week, the Duchess of Sussex interviewed Paris Hilton for her widely successful Spotify podcast, Archetypes, in an episode titled “Breaking Down The Bimbo”. It was a move you wouldn’t expect from the duchess, and one that I appreciated. The podcast episode acknowledged that Hilton had simply taken on the caricature of “bimbo” to assert her own power over a media narrative, but there’s more to bimbos than meets the eye.

During the podcast, Meghan admitted she was nervous to speak with Hilton, mainly because of the American socialite’s proximity to bimbos. “I was this nerd, so it was so hard for me to think about what you and I would talk about when so much of the identity – whether it was placed upon you, or you adopted, or embraced, or used to build a career – was about not leaning into being smart,” the 41-year-old royal told Hilton.

Earlier in the episode, Meghan admitted that she’s had her own experience with feeling like a bimbo during her stint as a briefcase girl on the game show, Deal or No Deal. She explained that the other women were forced to “line up” for beauty treatments, including having their bras padded, getting fake eyelashes, and being given spray tan vouchers every week. Meghan said that she quit the show mid-season because she “didn’t like feeling forced to be all looks and little substance”. More specifically, she didn’t like being reduced to the word “bimbo”.

However, Whoopi Goldberg claimed it was the nature of the job Meghan signed up for. “The objectification might be coming from you and how you felt about how these women were being portrayed, and that’s what you have to change, because we’re performers,” Goldberg said during a recent episode of The View. “When you’re a performer, you take the gig.”

“I don’t think Meghan is critiquing anyone’s expression of femininity – or at least I hope she’s not,” said Robin Lee Riley, assistant professor at Syracuse University’s Department of Women’s and Gender Studies. “The critique is not about focusing on appearance or certain kinds of knowledge over others, but rather is about being seen as only your enhanced breasts or short skirt, and not as a thoughtful, interested, skilled person.”

Long ago (and if you’re Gen-Z like me, 2006 was long ago), bimbos were a bad thing. Bimbo, according to Cambridge Dictionary, is a young woman considered to be attractive but not intelligent. She wears short skirts, lots of makeup, and is typically white and thin. She is seen as an oversexualised object, crafted by the male gaze, who works hand-in-hand with heteropatriarchy. All things considered, yes, this probably isn’t something one should aspire to be. I mean, there’s literally a bimbofication meme that depicts a woman wearing plain clothes and holding a book morphing into a bimbo version of herself, after first dropping the book on the ground. It’s like the cover of the Animorphs series but for bimbos.

But, much like many derogatory words over the past decade, whose power has been taken back by the communities it once sought to marginalise, the word bimbo has been reclaimed. And it all started on BimboTok.

The hashtag #bimbo has amassed nearly two billion views on TikTok. Much of this is due to TikTok creator, Chrissy Chlapecka, who is leading the new age bimbo movement. With blonde hair, pink outfits, eccentric makeup, and an Ariana Grande-esque voice, Chlapecka had all the makings of a grade A bimbo – until she defined what it actually means to be one.

“Who is the Gen-Z bimbo?” Chlapecka asked back in 2020, in a TikTok with more than 2.4m likes. “A bimbo isn’t dumb. I mean, she kind of is, but she isn’t that dumb.”

“She’s actually a radical leftist who’s pro-sex work, pro-Black Lives Matter, pro-LGBTQ+, pro-choice, and will always be there for her girls, gays and theys,” she said. To her, being a bimbo is embracing one’s own version of femininity, being confident, staying away from toxic men, and accepting that the world is going to end someday so might as well be yourself.

Of course, it could be argued that a willful acceptance of the hyperfeminine traits that heteropatriarchy perpetuates, despite using them to your own advantage, is still a reflection of the male gaze. But bimbofication isn’t the first feminist internet movement to toe that line.

Dissociative feminism – a term expertly defined by writer Emmeline Clein – refers to the type of feminism that is darkly comic, deadpan, and nihilistic. It’s categorised by women who are overtly aware of the structures that oppress them, but use intellectual detachment to avoid doing something about it. The younger, more chronically online sister of dissociative feminism is the dissociative pout, coined by cultural critic Rayne Fisher-Quann. Fisher-Quann writes for i-D magazine: “...the dissociative pout is a detached feminist with an ironic meme page. She still cares about being sexy, but knows there’s nothing sexy about caring too much. And in times of discord, chaos, and fear, a cultural descent into nihilism makes sense.”

The bimbo reclamation is in direct opposition to the current online feminist movements of today because it’s not passive like dissociative feminism. It subverts the once harmful stereotypes of femininity that were used by men to degrade women. Mind you, there’s not one way to embrace femininity. In fact, the term bimbo can also be used as a tool for queer liberation.

“Nobody can tell you how to be a bxmbo because it isn’t about the way that people perceive you,” said TikToker Griffin Maxwell Brooks in one video, in response to Chlapecka. “The bxmbo has no gender, no race, no class or ability. The only requirement for bxmbofication is that you embrace and reclaim your body in the name of independence. Nobody can tell you what to do or how to label yourself. All that matters is that you are both physically and mentally hot and sexy on your own terms.”

In her TikTok, Chlapecka also added an important addendum to the bimbo clause. “It’s about emotional intelligence at the end of the day,” she said. So much of bimbofication in the past has been tied to this idea of intelligence, or lack thereof. Even the Duchess of Sussex said that she projected “judgment and envy” towards Hilton, because Hilton was the “pretty one” and Meghan was the “smart one”.

For so long women have had to prove themselves worthy to be taken seriously by men, and one way to do so was to surpass them intellectually or financially. Such was born the “girlboss” –  a hyperambitious form of feminism that was pervasive in the 2010s, and focused on the individual successes of women in the masculine business world. But with the rise of leftist politics, and Gen Z’s overall distaste for late stage capitalism, bimbos everywhere began to critique the girlboss for its lack of inclusivity. Bimbos recognise there’s plenty of other things to worry about besides money or academic intelligence, such as providing mutual aid and building collective care networks. Plus, girlboss is cringe.

It’s important to note that, in her conversation with Hilton, Meghan does point out how the socialite adopted the label “bimbo” as a defense mechanism – from the years of trauma she endured at the Provo Canyon School in Utah, and from the public frenzy surrounding her life. By taking on the media’s narrative of a bimbo, Hilton was able to find her own power in the word. But bimbos today have one ability that Hilton never did: to self-identify as bimbos, rather than having it being forced upon them.

Whether you’re a bimbo or not, everyone can benefit from the bimbofication reclamation. And before you ask, no, identifying as a bimbo or dressing hyperfeminine will not be the “end of feminism” as some might say. How can one individual dismantle an entire decades-long movement, with hundreds of iterations and new ideas being formed on the internet every day? Bimboism expresses femininity, without pitting one person against another for how they choose to do so. Bimboism says that women can be both pretty and smart. Did Legally Blonde teach us nothing?