Got Guns?

Barney Stinson is a feminist's worst nightmare.  He is also a character many feminists would love to hate. Through the awful situations Barney puts women in, his fans stay by his side, and he continues to get new fans.


Feminist's should hate Barney because of his lack of morals, and lack of respect for all women.  Barney has tricked countless women into getting in bed with him, with the sole fact to ditch them the next morning.  For the most part, he lives for one night stands.  He once put on make heavy up to make himself look old, and tricked a woman into thinking he came from the future and major world issues would be solved if she would sleep with the younger version of himself.  Somehow, the woman fell for this.  Feminist's would hate Barney if they were to meet him in real life.  They would even hate everything he stands for in the show.  But, although he is offensive, as a character he is beyond entertaining.


Not only is Barney an anti-feminist, two of his best girl friends are feminists! Lily and Robin are each feminists in their own ways.  Lily shows her feminism when she chooses to keep her own last name when she marries Marshall.  Robin shows her feminism constantly throughout the series. She smokes cigars, enjoys going tot he shooting range with her guns, love hocked, owns five dogs, and most importantly does not want a committed relationship. Below is a picture of Robin and Marshall at the shooting range, showing Robins love for guns. 

How is it that Barney, Robin, and Lily can be such great friends with such different views on life? Robin and Lily are constantly making fun of Barney for how pathetic he is with women. They see him as being helpless and laugh at the majority of what he does.

Thank you to http://glock-21.blogspot.com/2011/06/robin-scherbatsky-firearms-enthusiast.html for this image 

"ArchiSEXture"

Below is a video clip from Episode 7, Season 5 of How I Met Your Mother.  This video shows just how against relationships Barney Stinson actually is.  He gave his suitcase of porn to Ted now that he was in a committed relationship (with Robin), which had a tape named "Archisexture" in it.  He named it this because he knew it would draw Ted's attention since he is an architect.  He was right.  Click the link below to see exactly what the "porno" said.

ArchiSEXture 

Thank you to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjY1Z1YEdjo for this video clip.

The Significance of 200

Barney Stinson is beyond disgusting to women, although he does at times show his emotional side, these times do not make up for his disrespect for women throughout the series.  During Episode 22 of Season 4, Barney explains to his friends that he is about to sleep with his 200th woman.  When Barney was in grade school (about age 12) he made a bet with one of the bullies, saying he would one day sleep with 200 women.  Barney has been working on this for many years of his life.  Marshall makes a chart to show Barney that even though he is going to sleep with his 200th woman, his success rate of getting a woman into bed is approximately 1.2%.  Below is the chart Marshall constructed.

After Barney slept with his 200th woman, the bully from high school made an appearance in the episode, putting Barney down for living a life based on a lie he was told in grade school.  His old classmate states "You've built your whole adulthood based on a lie I told you when I was 12?" Then continues to tell Barney "Sounds like you've got a lot of problems." This did phase Barney, but he still remained proud of his accomplishment of reaching 200. 

Thank you to http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20334790_20722399,00.html for the above picture

"Oh Honey"

Although Barney disrespects women in every episode, he continues to have a growing fan base. So why is this? How is it that so many women are fans of a character who treats women so poorly?

Barney Stinson DOES have an emotional side.  The emotional side of Barney is what keeps the female audience interested and content with the way Barney treats women. Throughout the seasons it is known to the audience that Barney does not know who his real father is.  His mom at one point told Barney that his father was Bob Barker, previous host of The Price Is Right.  Barney went on an episode of the show, and won nearly everything he competed for all with dreams of impressing his father, Bob Barker. Barney eventually realizes Bob Barker is not his father, as he sets out to find his real father.  At one point Barney even believes an African American pastor is his father.  Barney is extremely depressed in quite a few of the episodes.

During an episode titled "Oh Honey" (Season 6, Episode 15), Barney attempts to sleep with a girl, Honey.  Barney says "Come to Daddy," which is followed by a response from Honey that leaves Barney in tears.  Barney cries to Honey about his father issues stating that he sent letters to his father and has received no response.

In a later episode Barney does end up meeting his father.  His father turns out to be a huge let down from Barney's hopes of what his father would be like.  Barney gets extremely emotional in every episode his father is mentioned, even now that he does know who his father is.  He grew up with his mother, and his african american brother, never knowing who his father was and there is now a big whole in his heart. 

Not only does Barney get emotional when talking about his father, he also gets emotional when he thinks and talks about Robin.  One night Robin took Barney back to her apartment to watch a video from her teenage years, Robin and Barney ended up getting together that night.  After that night, Barney had a crazy obsession with Robin.  She is all he thinks about, and she even tries to keep her from moving away for a job offer.  He is so afraid of losing Robin that the group eventually comes to a conclusion that Barney is in love with her.  The two of them did date for quite a few episodes, but the relationship did not last.  They broke up and Robin started dating a therapist, Kevin, whom she eventually ended the relationship with.  Around the same time, Barney ended a relationship he had with a girl, Nora, so he could get back together with Robin.  Even after Robin and Kevin broke up, Robin did not want to date Barney, which left Barney heartbroken.  Hopefully in a future episode we will see Barney and Robin get back together, although right now it is not looking too promising.  If Barney keeps it up with his emotions maybe Robin will see how he really feels.  I know how he feels, as does the How I Met Your Mother fan community, now it's just time for Robin to realize Barney isn't just a womanizer and that he does have emotions.  This situation is one of the main reasons female audiences do love Barney Stinson even though he is completely anti-feminist.

Barney's emotional side makes him a very likable character. It gives the female audience time to forget about all the terrible things Barney does to women, and has them almost feeling bad for him at the end of the episode.  The writers of this show did a fantastic job making the female audience have a love-hate relationship with Barney.

Thank you to http://www.ovguide.com/tv_episode/how-i-met-your-mother-season-6-episode-15-oh-honey-3497811 for the photo above