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What’s Wrong With the Word Feminist?

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Source: Google Images through Creative Commons
Source: Google Images through Creative Commons

By DeDe Jones

I’m starting to believe the world just doesn’t understand feminism. Maybe it’s because they are reading the wrong articles that are telling them, “Feminists are women that hate men.” WRONG! A feminist is someone who advocates or supports the rights and equality of women. Feminism is a collection of movements aimed to define, establish, and defend equal political, economic, cultural, and social rights for women. Or maybe we should try to come up with a different definition that everyone can understand, because if you truly understood what a feminist is, you wouldn’t try to ban the word.

TIME Magazine is doing a poll to figure out which words should be banned in the year 2015 and guess which word made the list? Feminist. Now, I know TIME Magazine really can’t ban the word, but why did it even make the list? Are we feminists really getting on everyone’s nerves with what we do and say? I’m sorry that I just want women to have the same rights as men, get paid the same salaries as men, and have the same opportunities to move up in their careers as men. Well, I’m not really sorry, because I believe women are capable of reaching their dreams and gaining the respect they deserve.

On the TIME website, they said that they are not against the feminism itself, but the fact that “every” celebrity has to state their position about it. HELLO! It’s a movement, how else are our voices supposed to be heard if we don’t have someone to voice their position and opinions about the movement? It is deplorable that TIME has equated the feminist movement with trendy buzzwords like “bae” and “turnt”. These words have been over used in a way that is not helpful to society and doesn’t have much meaning. But the word, feminist, has a lot of meaning. It simply means you want and support the rights and equality of women. (Side note: “bae” and “turnt” are not even in the dictionary, but feminist is.)

So, I say let’s not ban this word, but encourage more people to say it without fear. Let’s educate more people about feminism to make them feel more comfortable with supporting women and their identity as feminists.

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