In response to Carrisa Sacherski's post "Response to Avery's Post" (11/25/2012):
We have a positive chain of blog posts going on here! Huzzah!
At the end of her post, Carrisa mentions that 'isms' of any kind can create preconceived notions of a group of people. I think that this is absolutely true, and is furthermore a rarely-explored downside to even positive 'isms.' In fact, I think that it provides a way for positive 'isms' to become negative ones.
The evolution of the term 'feminism' is a good example of this phenomenon. Originally, 'feminism' meant simply 'a movement to promote the rights of women so that they are equal to those of men' - a movement with a fine goal, certainly. Early feminists also appear to have recognised that in order for women to have access to the same privileges as men, they would also have to take on the same responsibilities. However, as feminism gained followers and achieved many successes, it gained a more sinister connotation in addition to the initial positive one. While there are many feminists today who still hold to the original goal of the feminist movement, there are also many - perhaps more - who have changed the goal to one of superiority for women. Such people (sometimes referred to as radfems by the rational members of the feminist movement) ignore issues of men's rights, and wish for women to exercise the same privileges as men without any of the responsibilities. They give rational feminists a bad name, and have become so prevalent that their particular variety of 'feminism' is no longer a discredited oddball offshoot. In fact, they have so corrupted the term that many people who support the idea of equal rights for people of all genders have abandoned it and adopted other labels, such as 'gender egalitarian' or 'gender equalist.'
This example, I think, vividly illustrates the transformation of an indisputably positive 'ism' into a much more morally debatable one.
"Ism"s, as you pointed out, can sometimes change in meaning, or at least connotation. I think some people neglect to realize this and therefore end up identifying with terms that are perhaps out-dated. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes it can cause large amounts of confusion.
ReplyDeleteFor example, A person who identifies with Catholicism under the accepted definition and connotation of the 1200s would be very different from a person who identifies with Catholicism in the 2000s. I imagine this same thing is what you are talking about with regards to feminism. There are probably many people who would gladly identify (perhaps with an intersection to other genders' rights) with the original connotation of feminism, but due to keeping up with the various definitions of feminism have decided to avoid the label entirely, with the hope of avoiding being perceived as a radical feminist, and not causing the women's rights movement harm. Additionally there are people who due to lack of knowledge about the new connotation related to radical feminists, still adopt the label of feminism.
This, I think, leads to an interesting battle for the use of a word; it is difficult to win back a word once it has been tainted with negativity. Though I suppose it work the opposite way too; it may be equally as difficult to regain a negative connotation once the word has been tainted with positiveness, as seen with the word queer.
And it is difficult, of course, to give up on the word and search for a new one, because the new word would need to regain followers and so on - it's like starting a new movement.
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