If you had asked me a year ago, I would not have considered myself a feminist. At that point, I had never given the label much thought, but I got the sense that it was an uncomfortably strong word with a vaguely negative connotation. Unfortunately, this seems to be a common sentiment, especially for those who know little about the 1960s civil rights movement, the sexual revolution and the systems of thought regarding gender and race that have developed since then.
By this point in V-Week, you are hopefully familiar with the most common definition of a feminist: a person who believes in equality between men and women. People who are well-informed about the history of feminism do not pride themselves on hating or attacking men. In fact, I think very few knowledgeable feminists hate men or see any merit in unjustly attacking them. Far from blaming modern men for creating gender oppression, the feminists I most respect work to raise awareness of and deconstruct the ways in which both men and women are confined by cultural definitions of acceptable manhood and womanhood.
However, even some of these people hesitate to call themselves "feminists." Suspicious of using a word that seems to favor females over males, they prefer to call themselves "equalists." Others claim labels such as "pro-feminist" and "womanist," or create new phrases like "feminist geographer." Although these people believe in gender equality, they are concerned that earlier forms of feminism focused exclusively on the concerns of middle-class white women, to the exclusion of women from other backgrounds. Instead, they prefer to focus on the complex interactions between different forms of oppression (e.g. those that stem from being both an ethnic minority and a woman).
They needn't do this. Yes, it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate different forms of oppression experienced by a person or group of people. And yes, early forms of feminism largely ignored the unique forms of oppression that women of color and those of low socioeconomic status experience. But that does not mean that modern feminism needs to do so.
I do not deny that these neologisms were coined for valid reasons, which must be addressed by contemporary feminists. The terms themselves, however, do more to hinder progress toward the common goal of gender equality than they do to advance it. They overemphasize the points of disagreement within feminism and, as a result, prioritize these differences over the ultimate goal that all these groups can agree on: gender equality.
The only reason I can think of to explain why various groups would create new terms is that they underestimate the power that unity affords. Current social psychology maintains that the only way that the majority will begin to listen to the minority is if the minority presents a consistent and united front. Overemphasizing the importance of absolute consistency divides a group that generally has more in common than not. This hampers any one group's ability to accomplish larger goals that are shared by the collective whole.
It is therefore in the best interests of all those who believe in gender equality to stop quibbling about the mistakes made by early forms of feminism. Instead, contemporary feminists should work together to redefine the word for our generation. If more well-respected, intelligent people from diverse backgrounds asserted their identity as feminists, they would make great strides toward positively redefining the word.
Retreating from the term and claiming new words to represent differences in perspective misunderstands what it means to unite under a single word. Specifically, it assumes that everyone who identifies with a particular word holds the exact same values and interprets the word in exactly the same way. I cannot think of a single case in which that is true. Not all Democrats hold the same values, nor do all Republicans. Yet this does not stop people from proudly claiming the political label with which they most agree.
The same should be true of feminism. We cannot rely on previous feminist work to define modern feminism. Instead, feminism must evolve to engage with the new pressures and challenges that face people today. The label is not perfect, but agreeing to embrace it creates an opportunity for improvement and progress, and allows a larger number of people to mobilize behind the shared goal of gender equality.
