Definition of feminism

[jack]

Feminism means:

"Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes." (The dictionary definiton.)
People who think women are still mostly opressed, who most people think are loonies.
Comments:

ETA:

5 people ticked both
1 person ticked the second
9 people ticked the first

Comments:
"It means the first. feminist, on the other hand, is usually the second."
"You can't spell oppressed! And there are ways in which women are still oppressed. And indeed men are also constrained by gender stereotypes. Woman's hour this morning was talking about the patriachy being a cause of men's shorter life expectancy"

I need to rephrase the second, perhaps.

Comments

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

I guess it depends on the person really.

I find a lot of feminism really offensive. Sort of "I'm so empowered that I need to use words like 'wi'myn' and 'herstory' instead of the regular ones everyone else uses" - those types of loonies get on my nerves. It's like, I really really don't like a lot of these "women in sciences" kinds of conferences/mentoring schemes/training courses, as they imply women need some kind of special treatment/bribery/mothering in order to get anywhere in life. Giving women that kind of idea is as much of a problem as any other source of "oppression" in many ways.

The best kind of feminism, in my opinion, is just to get on with one's life and have a good time, whilst co-incidentally being female. I am a scientist first and a woman second, as far as careers and so on go.

[sillytrippy.livejournal.com]

'herstory' I get, but what is 'wi'myn'?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

"women" without the "men", I always thought. At least *those* words *are* related.

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall it's a version of "women" that isn't just a "derivative" of "men" (regardless of the fact that woman is from Old English wifmann, back in the day when "mann" just meant a human being). It's allegedly short of "we-moon" or "we of the moon". Ewww, anyone?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

:(

I can see what the point of such things might have been. It's a good way of drawing attention to your cause and rebelling against society.

Now it seems very counterproductive, and living well yourself and combatting specific prejudices when you find them seems a better way to further equality.

(It has echos of the racist cry being raised whenever anyone says 'niggardly', which is like the "feminism" word debate, but backwards, in some ways :))

[ewx.livejournal.com]

wombyn is a similarly made up word based on womb rather than moon and of course strictly not to be rhymed with combine (harvester, not the verb). Anyone who thinks I'm making it up is invitited to google it...

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

I am now acutely embarrassed by my reproductive organs...

*pets wombyn on head and tells them to get out more*

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

rhymed with combine (harvester, not the verb)

Eh?

Surely if it rhymes with combine as in combine harvester, it rhymes with combine as in the verb, as they're pronounced the same (or at least they certainly are when I say either of them)...

[ewx.livejournal.com]

When I say it:

"combine harvesters" = put two harvesters together

"combine harvesters" = several items of agricultural machinery

The stress is softer in the second as well as in a different place.

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

fairy snuff

would personally pronounce them the same, ie same word different context.

ie your combine harvester is a result of when you combine harvesters

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

then again...

it is a legal requirement to pronounce "combine harvester" in a west country accent

and not being from thw West country, I generally don't have a west country accent so wouldn't pronounce combine in one

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Where do you put the stress, then?

(It's also a noun, e.g. business combine; in that case I pronounce it the same as the adjectival form, combine.

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

combine

then again some people have told me I have an odd accent, but the on other hand others have told me I haven't got any at all...