So I, being the feminism-craving dork that I am, decided to type 'feminism' into Google for fun. The first result was Wikipedia's entry , the little description under the title reading "Feminism is the belief that women should have political, social, sexual, intellectual and economic rights equal to those of men." That made me stop and think for a bit, because I feel like that's such a confining definition to the term; it's a very one-dimensional take to a concept that is so complex. I mean yeah, we want gender equality, but I think there is so much more to feminism than just matching up to our male counterparts.
For me, 'feminism' has been closer to bell hooks' definition: "a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression." It's not just looking at things from a woman/man dichotomy, but examining hegemony, intersectional analyses, and so much more. Wikipedia is by no means the most reliable source one can look to, but it sucks many people will be given a limited impression of feminism because of it.


0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Feminism = catching up to men.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/13291













actually, that is a pretty common "official" definition of feminism, perhaps because it was defined by second wave feminists who were almost all white middle class women. so they were color blind and class blind for much of the movement.
i agree, we do need a more holistic, but not complicated definition of feminism, as we are becoming conscious of the different oppressive intersections.