Misogynist bullshit from TIME magazine’s annual ban-a-word poll.
I was feeling fiercely angry after learning that TIME included feminist on a list of words to be banned from common usage. I will not provide the link because they did it for traffic and they should not be rewarded for their indecency.
And it is indecent. For clicks, shits and giggles, a human gerbil desperately spinning for male approval and working far above her competency suggested that feminist is overused and included it in a list of words that should be banned. Responding to richly deserved backlash, she demanded we consider the context; she is critiquing media trends, not feminism. This is doubly shameless when she blithely ignores the context in which the “I am a Feminist” campaign came to be. I am sure she is proud of herself, though, because she is the kind of feckless crystallization of vapidity that always will be very, very, very proud of itself.
I am not going to rehash GamerGate or the War on Women or review the depressingly long list of women whom retrograde knuckle-walkers have tried to silence with rape and death threats. I am not going to list the long list of anti-women legislation proposed and passed. I will only sadly mention that 36% of Oregon voters voted that women should not have the same legal and civil rights as men. It is all sad and depressing, but, Katy Steinmetz, that is context.
Feminism is controversial because as women have become more economically independent and achieved a measure of parity in society, they are less susceptible to social and economic extortion to remain in bad relationships. Is a good relationship possible with a man who thinks women are second class citizens? That, Katy Steinmetz, is context.
Of course, Katy Steinmetz is not that important and she never will be. Though I imagine someday she will realize that she is paid significantly less than men in her same position – notoriously common in journalism. She may be angry, she might want to express that anger with a word. I wonder what word she will use?