Girlboss Feminism in the Oil Industry During the TikTok Era

In what feels like a parody video, a female oil worker encourages “feminists” to work on oil rigs.

The video has tags proclaiming “#feminineenegry,” “#feminist,” and “#dirtyhandscleanmoney.” Which, if you know anything about the oil industry—there’s nothing clean about that money. The oil industry has had a close-knit relationship with crime and corruption for decades. These companies have done anything and everything to keep themselves on top and prevent the rise of clean, renewable energy. 

Working in a male-dominated field does not inherently make you a feminist. Especially not when that industry is actively making life harder for women across the planet by being the main driver of climate change. 17 of the 20 worst carbon emitters are oil companies, it’s made worse by how they knew about man-made climate change as early as the 1960s and purposefully lobbied against emissions regulation and other pro-climate measures.

Equating feminism with capitalist success is what led to the satirical phrase “gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss,” which pokes fun at how female business owners will hide behind feminism to disguise their abusive business practices.

In some ways, it feels wrong to be critical of the trend; the comments on the video are full of blue-collar women workers who are proud of their work. At the end of the day, the oil company is the one responsible for the environmental degradation, not the average worker.

I dug more into the “news clip” at the beginning of this video and learned that it was a clip of Pearl Davis, a self-proclaimed anti-feminist influencer.

She argues that society will not and should not be equal until women are working on “oil rigs… [as] plumber[s]… electrician[s]… [and] on the front lines in the military.” I find that to be a terrible argument because many women are already working in those industries and often face sexism/discrimination from bosses, clients, and fellow workers who say they don’t belong.

Many of these industries are male-dominated because women were barred from working within them for decades if not longer. Women were working in factories and in fields during the Great Depression and WWII, but the moment men came home from the war, upper/middle-class women were expected to go back home and stay there.

The idea that women do not deserve equal rights because they do not work hard labor jobs is prime anti-feminist propaganda and implies that women should earn the freedoms that most men are born with—whether they are employed or not.

It almost feels like a catch-22: if women follow Pearl’s advice, then they perpetuate systems like the American Military complex or the oil industry while subjecting themselves to often sexist workplaces and toxic environments. If women don’t listen to Pearl or are critical of her statements, then they get accused of discouraging women from pursuing careers in male-dominated fields.

This is a larger trend across many forms of conservative media where they argue that being against them and their beliefs is “anti-American,” or that anti-racists/anti-sexists are the real discriminators for acknowledging that discrimination exists and is encoded in our laws and systems.

It’s all smoke and mirrors meant to distract from true systemic inequality and the damage caused by these industries.

Focus on the videos of women working on oil rigs and not the women surviving hurricanes, fires, and floods created by manmade climate change.

Oil-light. Gatekeep. Girlboss.

(featured image: Unsplash/our edit)