The meaning of words- feminism

KQ: What is the role of language in creating and reinforcing social distinctions, such as class and gender?


Language is one of the fundamental driving forces of growth and innovation through the communication with others. Its use can inspire change and improvement and can give rise to many new things and concepts. Ideas, definitions and many other things can be adapted into language to aid our knowledge and understanding of these topics. However, because of the diversity of human understanding and interpretation, language can be used to represent points of different angles which can contradict or misrepresent. Many of these issues can be found with the modern controversy of feminism.

In general, feminism is the advocacy and agenda of pushing female rights. Throughout history, this has been attempted in a multitude of ways. These range from the original radical and militaristic approach to the modern vocal fight through social media. There have been adversities faced through both approaches, however, the direct and physical approach could be less misinterpreted and achieved direct results. Now a days, all social movements are conducted purely with language and the anonymity that the internet provides combined with already established freedom of speech brings a crowd of people who do not have the same conviction or ideals. 

Feminism is seen by many as an excuse to justify a lifestyle now a days, and in many instances this remains true. Modern feminism in first world countries has no more adversities and is descending into trivial things such as sexist air conditioning and criticizing men's suicide support groups. The way they represent their cause can shine a negative light on all of it, especially when the tone is condescending and filled with cursing. This is an example of internal stigmatization but it can also be found externally. Many misogynistic people and more conservative parties act external pressure onto the feminist movement by calling out hypocrisy or generally voicing their discontent. Both of these negatives and their constant vocal involvement continuously prevent the focus on serious topics by overshadowing the silent majority. Unfortunately, this inflation of voices is what gives modern feminism a bad reputation.