Feminism may be one of those words nice people just don’t say it in public. It isn’t a dirty word but it seems as if we should wash our mouths out with soap than to utter the word and acknowledge its power. The power that can make women and men cringe based on how they have personally interpreted it.
Perhaps it is difficult for women today to recognize that they have the privilege to denounce the F-word while also benefiting from the sacrifices of women who blazed trails to deliver incremental changes. Maybe life is so great there is no need for feminists and there is nothing more to be done.
Perhaps men don’t want to say the F-word because they think it means they’ll get a lecture on equality, become emasculated, or have to examine their own belief system along with the privileges that society has delivered to them through patriarchy.
O’Shaunessy and Stadler remind us, that our current rosy picture of life should not disguise the fact that women are still discriminated against in numerous ways. These include “unequal pay, violence against women, and general misogynist tendencies.” Why is it so horrible to not want these things? Feminism is merely one framework to address these issues. Both women and men lose when they subscribe to the idea that feminism is a dirty word.
When confronted with the topic of feminism do you ignore the F-word or do proclaim yourself a feminist? Why or why not?
Strategically Communicating 
Leave a Reply