#and whiskey represents a realistic reforming pick me woman where she recognizes that its not cool to be dependent on men anymore

[thisbarbieisanurse]

Birdie and Whiskey are two sides of the same coin: a white woman trying to exploit patriarchy to work in her benefit.

You're not supposed to like Whiskey because she is shown as self-aware of her actions AND the harm that she in engaging in by endorsing patriarchy BUT Birdie is shown as more "sympathetic" because the way she endorses patriarchy is through her interpersonal relationship to Miles and therefore her agency gets diminished because of her love for Miles.

However, Birdie is even more insidious of a character than Whiskey is because she justifies her actions to herself as being well-intentioned because she loves Miles. But she doesn't love Miles. She loved controlling Miles, she loved the power she felt when Miles told her "I can't believe I'm talking to you, you're on magazines." If I was in that situation, it would come off very strong to me but Birdie likes it because she interprets it as having power over Miles.

Miles is not as attractive as Birdie, but he has money. When she was young, she saw it as her beauty having power over him. But because she's used to her beauty doing all the work for her, she's never had to be intelligent. She's fed and believed this lie that beauty is the most important thing a woman has and her stupidity is her ultimate downfall because if she thought about what it meant to be beautiful in this society, she'd know she was dooming herself to fail because a woman is only beauty until her 30th birthday in America.

But here's the thing, Whiskey is young. She represents a different version of Birdie, a smarter version of Birdie who is more aware of feminist theory but is still blinded by her youth, race, and beauty. She's bought into the lie that beauty is all that matters but she doesn't like how that causes men like Duke to abuse her and basically sex traffick her. She's waking up to the harm that the "mandom" perpetuates and is shown to be conflicted over that versus pursuing a career in politics.

She knows that beauty can be used as a weapon but she is also aware of how rapidly she is aging out of that category and I think the difference between Birdie and Whiskey is really their intelligence. I love it.