Various Thoughts on Feminism, Brought to You by the Vanderpump Rules Cast

In Part 2 of the Vanderpump Rules Season 6 reunion on Tuesday night, Andy Cohen encouraged the women in the group to discuss our favorite topic, which is, of course, The Purge. Just kidding, it’s feminism. Brittany and Lala, what do you think?

If you’ll recall, Lala has really blossomed this season in terms of spreading the good Word of the power of the pussy to all who will listen. She even has an empowerment prayer, as summarized in an earlier episode: “I don’t love my feet, but I thank them, because they walk me around. I thank my hands, even though I think they’re man hands,” she said. “They give great hand jobs. I thank my little kitty cat because it takes that D like a champ.”

Once Andy pivoted last night’s reunion conversation to feminism, nearly all facets of the debate emerged via the women in the cast, which is just one reason Vanderpump Rules is such an important cultural institution. Were the men forced to explain their feminist philosophy in a few seconds? Of course not.

“You spoke a lot about feminism this season,” Andy stated, while asking Lala to define feminism pithily. “You talked about power of the pussy.” You can say pussy on Bravo.

Naturally, Lala considers herself a sex-positive modernist. “I don’t think there’s one way to portray being a feminist,” she said. “For me, the female body is beautiful and if you wanna bring your tits out to do this, that, and the other, you just do you, boo.” Simple sexual liberation. Or rather, perhaps feminism involves many nuanced ideas morphing in real time but boils down to equality for women and there are some things it is not.

NO! Lisa Vanderpump, the matriarch in the room and the reason these people have fake jobs, gave a sort of predictable rebuttal to Lala’s response. “She’s not exactly the quintessential feminist if she talks about, ‘Well, I give a BJ and I get the jewelry,’ and all that,” said Lisa. “It’s a bit of an oxymoron.”

While Lisa repped for the passé oxymoron generation, Andy had to point out that Lala once shamed Stassi and Katie for not having “summer bodies” (a nice, valid callback to a previous season) and that Lala drives a car her sugar daddy bought her, which is whatever. Does Stassi agree with Lala’s definition? “It’s not my brand of feminism, but it’s hers,” Stassi said, which meant both nothing and everything. Lala: “I’ve never considered myself a feminist. I just consider myself giving power to the pussy, to be honest.”

Feminism is… “I think you have the power to do whatever you want with whatever you have,” Ariana explained. “I think that’s part of what being a feminist, or being a woman, or being whoever, is all about.” One thing’s for sure, Lala loved being the force of empowerment in the circle this season, and this was a broad range of muddy, not totally horrible responses about feminism from a cast of reality stars whose main goal is to be evil to each other in perpetuity.

Then we get to Brittany, who presented the (often tiring) “support all women” aspect of feminism. Referencing Lala, she said, “I think the confidence and everything that she portrays and she talks about with like women and everything, I think that’s great because whenever I gained weight and I had so many grown women commenting on me about how fat I was or anything like that, it’s really, really hard.” Brittany added, “I think women need to support each other and lift each other up and not tear each other down, especially when you don’t know the person.” To which, Jax followed up with: “Hashtag, Me Too.” Jesus. Okay, it was the right choice not to ask the guys.