This year, TIME magazine’s annual poll of ‘Which Word Should Be Banned’ has caused more stir than merely addressing the overuse of annoying terms such as ‘bae’ and ‘I can’t even…’. The 2015 edition, published on the 12th November 2014, has controversially seen the inclusion of the term ‘feminist’ working its way up the list. The momentum the feminist movement has gained over the last year in popular culture has resulted in an increased usage of the term in media, which has deterred people from the terminology.
“Feminist – You have nothing against feminism itself, but when did it become a thing that every celebrity had to state their position on whether this word applies to them, like some politician declaring a party? Let’s stick to the issues and quit throwing this label around like ticker tape at a Susan B. Anthony parade.”
But how can exposure, and using the media as a platform to promote a just global issue, be seen as a negative thing? I hope that there’s no doubt in anyone’s minds that feminists are not a man-hating, cultish tribe, unrelatable and unrealistic in modern society. In fact, feminism is the promotion of women’s rights on the grounds of equality of the sexes. When you put it like that, it doesn’t seem all that scary now does it?
We have come a very long way since Emily Davison threw herself in front of a horse so that women could have the right to vote in the UK. We have had our first woman Prime Minister in Britain, generally women have more control over their bodies (although I know this is not always the case), and women are beginning to achieve a prominent place in boardrooms, in policy making, and in the media and popular culture. This has been encouraged by women driving our rights forward collaboratively, by appreciating each other, and by supporting female accomplishments.
How, therefore, can a successful woman feel negativity towards other successful women taking pride in each other? For this is essentially the crux of TIME’s argument against feminism: there’s too much of it, it’s too in-your-face, and people are finding it too necessary to talk about.
It is this backlash, which is far too common when feminism is mentioned, which hinders the movement as a whole. As long as there is still negativity surrounding feminism, it is increasingly difficult to give the term the credibility and recognition it deserves. The fact that this poll has been published in 2014, which has certainly been a year of accomplishments for women – a year that has seen the UN’s ‘He For She’ campaign, the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, and the Forbes list of powerful women including 9 Heads of State and many other positive female role models – shows that the poll is out-dated and unrepresentative of the common global feeling.
It seems ridiculous, in a world where women are still paid over 20% less than men for the same jobs, and where sexual discrimination and harassment are often accepted as social norms, that anyone would feel the need to further condemn gender equality. The fact that influential celebrities like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift are encouraging the term gives the movement greater establishment in popular culture, but by judging this as ‘overuse’ clouds it with negativity and forces feminism to take a giant step backwards. It is publications like this one in TIME magazine that hold back the fight for equality, as long as people continue to belittle the expression, feminism cannot productively move forward.
Shouldn’t women have the right to voice their own opinions? We should be encouraging women to speak up for their moral and legal rights, rather than brandishing them annoying and in-your-face for doing so. I can’t imagine a man being told that it was ‘cringey’ that he felt the need to push for his right to be treated as an equal. Or that it was ‘bothersome’ that he voiced his feeling of injustice over gender discrimination.
Fortunately for womankind, and humankind for that matter, the world has responded to TIME’s publication with the anger and outrage that you would expect from any sound-minded individual. Many feminists, women and men alike, have taken to social media to express their shock and sadness that TIME has published something so insensitive and misogynistic.
Surely the author, as an online journalist and, ironically, a woman herself, can see the power we have as a generation to stimulate global concerns, to create a much larger circulation of knowledge, and encourage an international movement to thrive more than anyone has been capable to do so before. Global news feeds, satellite television and social media help us keep informed on situations of international concern, therefore by promoting such negative feelings on such a wide platform TIME is potentially harming the credibility of the feminist movement altogether – and credibility is something we have been fighting for for too long to just give up.
The word ‘feminist’ isn’t the problem, people’s perceptions of the word feminist is, and thus we need to change people’s attitudes – not the word itself.
Photo Credits: wonderingsound.com
http://thefashionfictionary.com/2014/10/08/why-im-a-feminist-with-elle-a…