{"id":544,"date":"2025-11-26T21:16:55","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T21:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/?p=544"},"modified":"2025-11-26T21:16:55","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T21:16:55","slug":"the-f-word-were-afraid-to-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/?p=544","title":{"rendered":"The F-Word We&#8217;re Afraid To Say"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>WHY ARE WE SO SCARED OF THE WORD \u201cFEMINIST\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s a strange, bitter irony in the fact that a word created to describe the fight for equality has become, in many circles, an insult. \u201cFeminist\u201d, a term rooted in justice, dignity, and human rights, is now rolled out with an eye-roll, a scoff, a dismissive \u201coh gosh, here we go again.\u201d And what\u2019s worse? Even people who <em>believe<\/em> in equality sometimes flinch at it. Sometimes even<em> i<\/em> flinch at it.<br>This blog began with \u201coppressed women in Greek society\u201d, all those ancient voices echoing a world in which women were property, pawns, wombs. I\u2019ve always considered myself someone who advocates for women\u2019s rights, someone passionate about exposing inequality, someone who &#8211; without hesitation &#8211; would say yes, of course, I\u2019m a feminist.<br>But then something recently jolted me. It started with a song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was telling my dad to listen to <em>Labour<\/em> by Paris Paloma &#8211; specifically around 3:20. The layering, the rise, the emotional punch of that section gives me goosebumps every time. It\u2019s a raw crescendo of centuries of female frustration. But as he listened, he laughed a little and said something along the lines of, \u201cGod, the lyrics are so dramatic.\u201d And for a second, embarrassingly, I agreed. The line \u201c24\/7 baby machine\u201d and others too did feel extreme. It sounds exaggerated and theatrical, like women are trying to make themselves victims. And then I stopped and asked myself why it felt dramatic <em>to me<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because I am lucky. Because I live in a context where I am not forced into childbirth. I have access to education. I can apply for jobs without being automatically dismissed because of my sex. I can speak, write, study, and think freely. I have the luxury of brushing off lyrics like that as \u201ctoo much.\u201d<br>There are women, millions of them, for whom that lyric is not metaphor, but reality.<br>That\u2019s when the TikTok I saw earlier this morning hit. A video claiming \u201cwomen are the most oppressed group in the world,\u201d followed by brutal statistics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>1 in 3 women worldwide experience sexual violence.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Every 3 hours, a woman in South Africa is killed.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>90% of people globally hold biases against women.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>1 in 4 women in the US experience domestic violence.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>If you live in a privileged bubble, and many of us do, it\u2019s easy to scroll past and mutter, \u201cOh, here we go again.\u201d To assume the conversation is exaggerated, outdated, unnecessary. But that\u2019s not because feminism is irrelevant. It\u2019s because <em>we<\/em> are fortunate enough to think it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Privilege Problem<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In my philosophy class, we\u2019ve been studying gender and society. Naturally, feminism comes up a lot. And yes, progress has been made. Women can vote, study, work, own property, divorce. In many Western countries, women have legal equality. But cultural equality? Social equality? Safety? Respect? Not remotely universal.<br>People in my position &#8211; comfortable, educated, safe &#8211; can fall into a kind of tunnel vision. We see <em>our<\/em> situation and assume it reflects the world. We begin to believe feminism has \u201cgone too far,\u201d that women now \u201ccomplain too much,\u201d that talking about oppression is melodramatic. But feminism isn\u2019t about <em>our<\/em> comfort, it\u2019s about <em>global<\/em> reality. When someone says \u201cI don\u2019t call myself a feminist because things are fine now,\u201d what they\u2019re really saying is: <strong>things are fine for me<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>So Why Do People Hate the Word \u201cFeminist\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ask a boy &#8211; and sorry boys, but we\u2019ve all heard it &#8211; \u201cAre you a feminist?\u201d and how often do you get:<br>\u201cNo, feminism is about women being superior.\u201d<br>\u201cIt\u2019s gone too far.\u201d<br>\u201cFeminists are extremists.\u201d<br>\u201cIt\u2019s all drama.\u201d<br>The term has been twisted, mocked, weaponised. Feminism gets treated as a joke, a tantrum, something hysterical. People imagine angry women burning bras, screaming about hating men, demanding dominance rather than equality.<br>The tragedy is that this misconception is so loud that even people who <em>agree with feminist principles<\/em> reject the label. Even women who write about female oppression (think of Virginia Woolf) resisted the term. Not because they didn\u2019t believe in equality, but because the label itself had been loaded with stereotypes.<br>Maybe the question isn\u2019t \u201cWhy don\u2019t people want to be feminists?\u201d Maybe it\u2019s: <strong>Why does a belief in equality need a label in the first place?<\/strong><br>We don\u2019t call someone who treats people of different races with respect a \u201crace supporter\u201d- we just call them decent.<br>So shouldn\u2019t believing women are equal simply be\u2026 normal?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Original Feminist Aim Was Never Superiority<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some people genuinely think that feminism is about flipping the hierarchy, about putting women above men. They see isolated stories of women lying about abuse or exploiting systems and say, \u201cSee? Feminism is toxic.\u201d<br>But every movement has extremists. Every system has people who abuse it. That\u2019s not feminism- that\u2019s humanity. Feminism, at its core, was never about dominance.<br>It was about dignity.<br>About women not being owned.<br>Not being silenced.<br>Not being beaten, traded, raped, or forced.<br>Not being treated as wombs, servants, or accessories.<br>It was, and still is, about equality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The problem is that in some places, like where I live, equality feels close enough that people assume the mission is complete. But equality that exists in one household, one city, one country does not erase global inequality. It just makes us blind to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Global Reality: Feminism is Still Desperately Needed<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Right now, as we sit comfortably scrolling Instagram, reading this blog, or moaning about our homework, women across the world are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Married as children.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Denied education.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Forced into childbirth.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Murdered for \u201cdishonouring\u201d families.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Barred from working.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Trafficked.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Silenced.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Entire governments legislate against women\u2019s autonomy. Girls are shot for going to school. Women are jailed for reporting rape. Basic safety &#8211; the right to walk home at night &#8211; is not universal, not even close. So when someone scoffs \u201cFeminists are so dramatic,\u201d maybe the issue isn\u2019t that feminism is dramatic. Maybe the issue is that we are desensitized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Stigma Silences the Very People Who Need to Speak<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s the most dangerous part of the feminist stigma: it makes women afraid to advocate for themselves. If \u201cfeminist\u201d becomes synonymous with \u201coverreacting,\u201d then every woman who speaks out risks being dismissed. If \u201cfeminist\u201d becomes \u201cman-hater,\u201d then every woman who asks for fairness risks being mocked. If \u201cfeminist\u201d becomes \u201cdramatic,\u201d then the suffering of millions becomes background noise &#8211; something we sigh at, mute, scroll past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>So What Do We Do With the Word Now?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We reclaim it. We strip away the mockery, the misunderstanding, the fear. We remind people (and ourselves like I am doing right now writing this blog) that feminism is simply the belief that women deserve equal rights, equal safety, equal opportunity, equal humanity. Not superiority. Not revenge. Not domination. Just equality.<br>And if you already have that where you live, cherish it. But don\u2019t let privilege turn into blindness. Don\u2019t let comfort become apathy. Because the benefits we enjoy were not handed to us &#8211; women fought, wrote, protested, marched, were imprisoned, exiled, ostracised, and killed to build the world we now benefit from. The least we can do is not roll our eyes at the word that carried that fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Next Time You Hear \u201cFeminist\u201d\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don\u2019t look down on it, don\u2019t mock it, don\u2019t distance yourself from it just to seem &#8220;chill&#8221; or &#8220;neutral&#8221;. Instead, remember:<br>You have the privilege to treat feminism like an opinion. For millions of women, feminism is survival. And if believing in their right to exist safely, freely, equally makes me a feminist? Then I\u2019ll wear the word proudly. Even if it makes some people uncomfortable. Especially if it does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WHY ARE WE SO SCARED OF THE WORD \u201cFEMINIST\u201d? There\u2019s a strange, bitter irony in the fact that a word created to describe the fight for equality has become, in many circles, an insult. \u201cFeminist\u201d, a term rooted in justice, dignity, and human rights, is now rolled out with an eye-roll, a scoff, a dismissive [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=544"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":547,"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions\/547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}