Fear of Feminism by Lisa Hogeland

Hyperlinks: Why Don't More People Call Themselves Feminists

In Lisa Hogeland’s piece, “Fear of Feminism: Why young women get the willies” she talks about some of the many reasons why so many young women are afraid to consider themselves feminists.  One of the biggest reasons is because so many people believe feminists are just angry lesbians that hate men, therefore if they call themselves feminists they are afraid that this stereotype will be placed on them too.  In this way, homophobia is what keeps so many from calling themselves feminists, so Hogeland tells us that, “Feminism requires that we confront that homophobia constantly.” 

Another reason many young women avoid the word feminist is in order to protect their romantic lives.  Hogeland says that “young women may believe that a feminist identity puts them out of the pool for many men, limits the options of who they might become with a partner, how they might decide to live.  They may not be wrong either: how many young men feminists or feminist sympathizers do you know?”  This is a legitimate point.  In the article that I posted above (“Why Don’t More People Call Themselves Feminists” by Jill Filipovic), it says that according to a poll in 2013 only 18% of men called themselves feminists compared to 38% of women.  That’s a ratio of less than 2:1, so you can imagine how difficult it would be for a female feminist to find a partner that wouldn’t be scared off by the title.

Also, in the article, Filipovic talks about what some celebrities say about feminism. “Taylor Swift isn’t a feminist because she doesn’t “think about things as guys versus girls”; Lady Gaga isn’t one because she “loves men”;… Shailene Woodley also “loves men” and believes in “sisterhood more than feminism.”  These are some celebrities that younger girls look up to, and they are giving them a bad definition of what a feminist really is. 

 

This is a pretty cool video from BuzzFeed that shows why feminism isn't a bad word.  Afterwards, I read some of the comments and saw how a lot of people were bashing the video continuing to say how feminists just hate men and they want women to have more power than men.  We need to get more people educated in what it really means to be a feminist because society is only giving feminism a bad name.