Just last week, Time Magazine put up a poll for which popular word from 2014 should be banned in 2015. The words included on the list were words such as yaaaaaaass, bae, turnt, and one of the most controversial, feminist.
The description of the word feminist by Time was that it was a useless label used by celebrities like, "ticker tape at a Susan B. Anthony parade," whatever that means.
When i first heard about this, i have to say I was pretty upset. I started to have one of those "lost all faith in humanity" moments. I was shocked and angry, and i wasn't the only one. Time Magazine recently pasted an apology on the top of the article that reads:
Editor’s Note:
TIME apologizes for the execution of this poll; the word ‘feminist’ should not have been included in a list of words to ban. While we meant to invite debate about some ways the word was used this year, that nuance was lost, and we regret that its inclusion has become a distraction from the important debate over equality and justice.
–Nancy Gibbs
The real issue here is not the word feminist itself, but how the word is used, and what different people associate with the word. So how is the word feminist used? the dictionary definition of feminist, or denotation is, "a person who supports feminism," which doesn't really get us anywhere. We then have to take a look at the denotative definition of feminism, which is "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men."There are many connotations, or associations we apply to words, that people have with feminism. Many believe that women are already equal to men, and that feminists are complaining for no reason, or trying to be above men in society. (the correct term for that definition is not feminist, but misandrist). This idea was popularized by the popular term created by Rush Limbaugh, 'feminazi'. (Its easy to be against feminists when we compare them to nazi's, right?) In this Time article feminism is portrayed as a label that takes away from the issues, implying that people who call themselves a feminist "like some politician declaring a party," do not plan to take action.
The whole poll seemed pretty stupid to me, so what if people literally cant even! Thats not what is wrong with society. As George Orwell would say, what is wrong is that people don't care enough to see how connotation can drastically change our view on things.
That is so ridiculous! No word should ever be banned. Banning words just reminds me of times when people would burn books. Like, what is this? As we read in the article by George Orwell, language changes over time. It's too bad that the old farts over at Time Magazine don't agree with the way the language has changed. They honestly need to get over it. Words are fun and I think the more new words the world comes up with, the better. I mean a word like bae does get super annoying, but it's creative and means 'before anyone else' which who wouldn't want to be someone's before anyone else? The same applies to banning the word feminist. But what does that word mean? I completely agree with you that the word is drastically affected by it's negative connotation.
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