What's Up With The 'Women Don't Understand POV' Discourse? An Incendiary Twitter Controversy Explained

We've all seen something like this: a TikTok or other short-form video pops on your feed, and a person on the camera says it is a POV. However, the story or joke they tell has to do solely with them and they film themselves, meaning that you, the viewer, are not getting a "POV" or "point of view" experience at all.

POV: you’re ron desantis getting reading to leave the house pic.twitter.com/HDiaNyqZch

— Ashley St. Clair (@stclairashley) October 18, 2023

Now, if you're a stickler for grammar and slang accuracy, you might point out, "hey, that's not what POV means" and leave it at that. Others, however, have used this common misuse of "POV" to basically do phrenology on women and make sweeping sexist statements about the female gender, and a doozy of a controversy has led to some blazing hot takes about women this week.

What Is The "Women Don't Understand POV" Controversy?

In July of 2024, shortly after Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, conservative influencer @IsabellaMDeluca made a "POV" joke that was intended to imply the Vice President slept her way to the top. However, she posted a picture of herself, meaning that, if taken literally, her tweet implies that DeLuca is the one who slept her way to the top. The tweet was deleted but reposted by user @G0ADM, who remarked on the unintended implication of the tweet and added that "Women don't understand POV" is a "tired" joke.

This inspired a pair of wild takes, both from women, that intended to solve the mystery of why "women don't understand POV." The first came from user @kaschuta, who said women cannot grasp the concept of what "point of view" means because they do not encounter "POV" adult content nor play first-person shooters. Her claim is that women simply never encounter "POV" content in their average life and are thus too ignorant to recreate it.

In response, user @verymoisturized went far beyond her point and basically said that women are too vapid and narcissistic to conceive of themselves as something other than an object to be looked at.

Women "struggle with categorical judgments or abstract reasoning," she said, adding, "it’s very difficult for them to conceive of objects outside of a solipsistic frame."

This astounding, sweeping generalization of women was cheered by quite a few on Twitter, many of whom were men who agreed women are biologically too stupid to understand the meaning of "POV."

Is The "Women Don't Understand POV" Claim Accurate?

While there are plenty of examples of women misusing "POV," using it synonymously with more accurate abbreviations like MFW, there are also plenty of examples of men and groups committing the same error.

@peternugget teacher influencers behind the scenes 🤣 #pov #comedy #fyp ♬ original sound – peter nguyen

noahjaywood #POV: Two siblings are training to be one of the most dedly assas!ns & one outshines the other…#fypシ #acting #fyp #collab #duet ♬ original sound – addamsfaml.

Furthermore, the misogynistic response to the misuse of the trend inspired some pushback. Twitter user @muditunderscore argued the discourse was a case of people seeing a woman misunderstanding a phrase and concluding all women are stupid, whereas upon seeing a man misusing the phrase, they would argue the man is stupid.

The discourse is intense, likely far too much so for a simple common error in internet slang. Still, as meme sticklers, we would appreciate it if people — of any gender — used the term "POV" correctly when memeing.

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For the full history of "Women don't understand POV," be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.