Holding The Media Accountable For “The F-Word”… I Mean, ‘Feminism’.
By: Maggie Lawrence
No matter how much we may refuse to admit it, each of us has been shaped by the media in one way or another. A significant example of this is the feminist movement. It’s been happening for years, but this sense of media-framing can be notably seen today with the modern interpretation of feminism as “the f-word”.
As much as the media have benefitted the feminist movement, they have also contributed to a lot of feminist’s setbacks. A specific example of this, is how the media have framed feminists as men-haters. A large reason Shippensburg University sophomore Julie Noel tends to not label herself as a feminist is because of the men-hating aspect that often comes up. She finds herself asking, “If the goal of feminism has been to create equality among the genders, then how would it make sense to start shaming the opposite sex to get what we want?” But it turns out that Julie is not the only one who has this mindset.
As seen through the popularity of “the f-word” as a replacement for ‘feminism’, many young women are turned off by this aspect and tend to develop the idea that a woman can’t be feminist and feminine at the same time. “I’m guilty, myself,” Julie says, “of honing in on how the media will sometimes portray feminists as radical man-haters, and I think a lot of my generation is as well.” She says she personally loves what advocates like Emma Watson and Amy Poehler are working towards and believes they have made “leaps and bounds” into the right direction. However, when she see’s people on social media who are generalizing all men to be “misogynist fools”, she can’t help but observe that as foolishness. “I think it’s when people become close-minded and refuse or fail to see how much progress has been made in the movement, that we tend to run into problems,” Julie says.
As pointed out in Debra Beck’s, The “F” Word: How the Media Frame Feminism, people are rejecting the label of feminism, not the cause.1 A study done in 1989 actually revealed that only 33% of women surveyed said they would consider themselves feminists, despite the staggering support for the issues of the movement.1 Beck says that “one of the biggest obstacles for anyone who promotes a viewpoint that’s even slightly outside of the norm, is that the media will usually strongly point out the opposing views.”1 In trying to objectively create ‘balance’, the media have only managed to create a great imbalance. Consequentially, a new habit of the media came about, in which they would ignore the movement except for its more noticeable incidents. An example of this type of situation could be seen at the start of the movement with the protest of the 1968 Miss America pageant. The event received major coverage for the first time, but it was so twisted and exaggerated that it only made them seem more radical.
So ladies, if you’re holding yourself back from fully taking the plunge into the feminist label, just remember that not everything is what it seems. Talk to the sources and get the sincere facts before you entirely shoot down the idea. We women need to stick together and we can’t have the media holding us back from that.
- Beck, D. B. (1998). The “F” Word: How the Media Frame Feminism. NWSA Journal, 10(1),
139-153. Retrieved February 5, 2016.
- Barone, J. (2015). The Modern F-Word: Why People Are So Afraid Of Feminism. Retrieved February 15, 2016, from http://elitedaily.com/women/call-me-the-f-word-feminism/1059133/