Why brilliant, beautiful billionaire Kim Kardashian is the ultimate feminist icon
“WELL-behaved women seldom make history.”
So goes American professor Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s now famous quote.
If that’s the case, then sex tape-making, bum-flashing, thrice-married reality TV star Kim Kardashian must have entered the history books many years ago.
And she deserves her place there — as now, at the age of 39, she has become a billionaire.
Kim’s “three comma” success is down to her selling 20 per cent of her cosmetics brand KKW Beauty to make-up giant Coty for $200million (£160million), valuing her firm at a billion dollars (£800million).
Her husband, rapper Kanye West, was quick to boast of his wife “officially becoming a billionaire”, tweeting his admiration — along with a picture of a giant green tomato and some flowers.
His tweet was given the usual kicking on social media. But the reaction by some to Kim’s new-found exclusive status was more alarming.
Her detractors howled about how on earth this crass, brazen and vain woman, who seems to spend her life pouting and flashing on social media, had become a billionaire.
What a poor example to set young women that simply being a vacuous poser is all you need to get ahead in life, they suggested. One newspaper columnist, using the twitter handle WestminsterWAG, wrote, without any sense of irony, that Kim should know women “were capable of so much more than being mere arm candy”.
Kim had “killed feminism” she whined, adding: “As the mother of a teenage daughter, to see Kardashian — a woman who has done very little apart from debase herself in the name of profit — rewarded in this way just fills me with sadness.”
Boo-hoo.
You see, the reality for this reality star is that Kim Kardashian has worked her world-famous backside off to get to where she is now.
While many sneer at her posting pictures of her scantily clad, cartoon-like body on Instagram to her 177million followers, she is cultivating her brand and adding to her influence by becoming one of the most powerful women in the world.
Oh, and she’s also training to become a lawyer, making history in the White House and fighting for criminal justice reforms.
The problem with Kim K — or rather, other people’s problem with her — is that she simply doesn’t fit into the template of a “perfect” powerful woman.
When you look up female icons, names such as Malala Yousafzai and Rosa Parks appear repeatedly — incredible activists who changed history and fought all their lives for change.
But does it always have to be that hard to be a female icon? Must we get shot in the head or refuse to sit at the back of the bus to be admired by generations to come?
Surely a self-made billionaire, who has turned a TV career into successful beauty and shapewear businesses and serves as a spokesperson for several charities and causes, should be celebrated rather than condemned.
Kim, along with Kanye, 43, even have their eyes on the Presidency in 2024.
When I recently mentioned that Kim could be President one day, someone guffawed: “Oh my God, can you imagine!”
Hmm . . . Can I envisage a former reality TV star from wealthy American stock leapfrogging into the White House? Yes, my power of imagination can just about stretch that far.
But while Trump has been recorded talking about grabbing women “by the p***y”, Kim decides to flash her own. I know who I’d rather have in the hotseat.
Kim was a young, ambitious thing and she was determined to make it in Hollywood.
Perez Hilton
It never stops being a source of fascination to me that outspoken, intelligent women decide that other outspoken, intelligent women can’t be feminists.
British actor Jameela Jamil recently called Kim “toxic and a terrible influence on young girls”.
When I was at school, a very inspiring teacher shared with the class the two things you believe in to be a feminist: 1) Equality, and 2) that everyone can decide what to do with their own body.
So for me, Kim is the ultimate feminist.
But it was her introduction into fame that leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths — THAT sex tape, leaked 13 years ago.
In March 2007, a video of Kim and her then boyfriend, Ray J, was released by porn company Vivid Entertainment.
Kim sued to prevent the tape being released before settling out of court and getting on with her rise to superstardom.
In today’s teen epidemic of anxiety, depression and self-harm, could it not be seen as refreshing that an embarrassing sexual mistake hasn’t ruined her life?
I really genuinely just stay focused on the cases and the people. I’m not doing it for publicity. I really do care.
Kim Kardashian
Working as a stylist to the stars at the time, an always business-savvy Kim was also selling the celebs’ clothes on eBay and sharing the profits with them to make money. Showbiz blogger Perez Hilton said: “Kim was a young, ambitious thing and she was determined to make it in Hollywood.
“Because she didn’t graduate college, she wouldn’t necessarily have got a real job.
“She did the clothes thing and what not, but she clearly wanted more.”
Soon she was signed as the star of a reality show with her family — Keeping Up With The Kardashians, which made its TV debut in 2007.
Over the years millions have watched — myself included — as she has transformed from wispy-voiced, vain, spoilt 20-something to a powerhouse businesswoman, mum of four, social justice advocate and part of America’s most famous couple when Kanye West married her — not the other way round.
Now, having successfully completed her first year of a four-year apprenticeship law programme in California, Kim is aiming to take the bar exam in 2022.
She has also released a documentary about her advocacy work for criminal justice reform, called Kim Kardashian West: The Justice Project.
The film shows her visiting prisons and working alongside legal experts on four cases where they believe inmates have been unfairly sentenced.
I’LL TEACH MY LITTLE GIRL NOT TO BE LIKE HER, BUT...
By EMILY CLEARY Sun reader & mum of two
NOBODY can deny Kim Kardashian has an astute eye for what will make her money.
But her success and wealth, and how she has achieved them, make me shudder.
This is a woman whose career is built on a leaked sex tape (Leaked? My much smaller — and yes, less toned — arse).
I teach my five-year-old daughter that it is her brains that will get her through life.
She’s already pouting as soon as she thinks she’ll be caught on camera.
She twists and turns like the girls she watches on YouTube, but there’s no way I’m going to allow her to idolise a vacuous, self-serving megalomaniac like Kim Kardashian, no matter how rich she may be.
Kim has made it OK for young girls to think that being pretty and pouting is all it takes to get where you want in life. But Kim is no icon.
She’s not someone I want my daughter knowing about, let alone admiring, and she’s certainly not a feminist.
Kim’s billion-dollar empire is built on self-promotion and ruthless ambition. Are these really the traits we want to encourage in our daughters?
Her proportions are laughable, and her refusal to discuss plastic surgery says all it needs to. How can I tell my daughter that this woman’s appearance is normal? Nothing about her is real.
I want my daughter to admire real women.
Ones who have careers built on talent, not their number of Instagram followers.
I’d rather my daughter was happy and poor than living a life built on an egocentric desperation for fame.
Although when she sees how many toys can be bought for a billion dollars, she may disagree.
It’s not at all surprising that Kim has taken this path. Her father, Robert Kardashian, became one of the world’s most famous lawyers when he represented OJ Simpson at his murder trial in 1995 — and Simpson was acquitted.
Kim has already successfully lobbied Donald Trump to pardon two prisoners. One, Alice Marie Johnson, 65, who served 21 years in prison for a first drug offence, is now a criminal justice reform advocate herself.
The other, Alexis Martin, 22, was sentenced to life at the age of 15 for murdering the pimp who sex- trafficked her.
Kim has also reportedly secretly funded a criminal justice campaign, the Buried Alive Project, which helped to free 17 inmates who had been given long jail sentences for low-level drug offences.
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When talking about work, Kim said: “I’m very used to criticism, so nothing really fazes me.
“I really genuinely just stay focused on the cases and the people.
“I’m not doing it for publicity. I really do care.”
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