Why calling another woman out for her toxic behaviour doesn’t make me a bad feminist

This week Molly-Mae, the influencer turned Love Island alumni turned Creative Director of fast fashion brand Pretty Little Thing, has been called out for insensitive comments. A clip of her December interview on The Diary Of A CEO went viral, in which Molly says: “Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day” and can be as successful as her, no matter their background.

There is a myriad of reasons why the comments were damaging. They reinforce the idea that you can positively think yourself out of poverty and they disregard forms of privilege that make success easier for certain people to achieve. A lot of people have questioned her comments online, including me. Molly has a massive platform, with millions who idolise her, and I’d love if she used that opportunity to do good. She could fight for the garment workers at Pretty Little Thing to be paid a living wage (they are currently paid £3.50 an hour, whereas Molly makes £275ph), she could address her privilege and talk openly about the reality of that, or, at the very least, she could get media training so that she doesn’t make harmful statements like this.

After talking about why Molly-Mae’s comments were damaging, I received a few messages telling me that ‘as a feminist, I should support all women’ and that criticising her was akin to bullying. This isn’t the first time I’ve had conversations like this. I’ve written countless pieces on misogyny, calling out sexist men, structural misogyny, the insidious ways the patriarchy presents itself, and, very rarely, women who I (and many others) believe are acting in a bigoted or ignorant way.

Because women do not have to blindly support other women and uphold their behaviour.

The fundamental of feminism that most can agree on is that it is about the advocacy of women’s rights, so when a woman is countering this or is so blinded by their own privilege that they are only supporting the equality and equity of a certain kind of woman (they might not know they are doing so), it is okay and necessary to call them out. For example, ‘you must support all women’ is a line often used by women who do not want their beliefs questioned by proxy – transphobic cis women, commonly known as TERFs, will use it to try and silence women who call out the likes of J.K Rowling, who has routinely made comments that hurt the trans community, such as “‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”. Transphobia is not supportive of all women, and is not intersectional, because it is targeting trans women and trying to push cis women even further into their privilege, rather than trying to make society better for all women.