What is feminism?
At its core, feminism is feminist theory. Feminist theory is all founded on patriarchy theory. Patriarchy theory is part of critical theory. Critical theory is meant to amend classic marxist theory. Part of classic marxist theory is conflict theory. Patriarchy theory is sometimes called ‘the conflict theory of gender’. Conflict theory, patriarchy theory, and critical race theory are all forms of the same idea, and essentially go as follows:
Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum relations within which these individuals stand. The system of our society is capitalism/patriarchy/white supremacy. In it, there is a privileged class, bourgeois/men/cishets/whites, who work in the power and interest of each other and against the power and interest of other groups, thereby establishing themselves as a separate class. All oppression stems from them having too much power as a class. By not being part of the elite class, the proletariat/women/lgbtQ/PoC are an oppressed victim class. To create social justice, the system must be overthrown by way of the victim class giving up their individuality and personal pursuits to create a movement or ‘collective class consciousness’ (marxism/communism/feminism/black nationalism/blm) which will serve the function of ending capitalism/patriarchy/whiteness, ultimately creating a balance of power between the collectives.
As a school of thought, feminism is a branch of Marxism, clearly.
But then there is the layperson’s definition, the colloquial use of the word ‘feminism’:
The popular belief is that ‘feminism’ is just some general word that comes from the dictionary relating to the women’s suffrage movement or the simple belief in ambiguous ‘equality’. But women’s suffrage was known by suffragettes simply as “women’s suffrage”, not as “feminism”.
Feminism actually refers to feminist theory due to being popularized by feminist theory during the 1960′s and 1970′s, then further popularized and propagated by it ever since. Thus, today, feminism most meaningfully refers to the feminist theory. Feminist theory is the guiding light of feminism as a school of thought.
They don’t stand in front of thousands of feminist courses reciting the dictionary definition of feminism for a whole semester, what they do is examine all other courses and subjects through the lens of feminist theory. The dictionary is philosophically illiterate, basing definitions on lamen’s terms and not consistence with actual schools of thought within philosophy, history, or academia. We don’t obtain words from the dictionary, it obtains words from us, describing them as they have come into use. The problem is, the common person doesn’t know anything about feminism as a school of thought, they simply think it means ‘gender equality’ all while reciting feminist ideas from feminist theory not even knowing it’s part of its own entire worldview.
Feminism does not mean ‘liberalism’, and liberalism does not imply ‘feminism’. Feminism does not inherently refer to the belief in universal rights, the right to self determination, nondiscrimination, tolerance, or any such enlightenment period ideas that are within the realm of classic liberalism. Those ideas predate even the 1837 inception of the term ‘feminisme’. If the dictionary definition of feminism were true, it would mean that feminism simply means equality, creating a contradiction between egalitarians who believe in liberalism vs egalitarians who believe in feminist theory. If a believer in equality can reject all of feminist theory -the entire foundation of feminism as a school of thought- and still meaningfully be called a feminist, then one could be a feminist against feminism - A dictionary feminist against feminist theory. This is the issue with the dictionary argument of feminism, it is a contradiction to feminism’s foundation. Feminism does not have a monopoly on the idea of equality, its simply on variation of it, and even it differs with itself between its various sects.
Our modern concept of feminism is entirely intertwined with the ideas of Feminist Theory, Patriarchy Theory, Intersectional Theory, Queer Theory, and Critical Race Theory. The way feminism manifests in the world is entirely dependent on these bodies of feminist theory. And that’s all philosophical. What people really care about is the way they manifest as a force in the world, an ideological and political force through the feminist movements such as Radical Feminism, Gender Critical Feminism, Political Lesbianism, Queer Feminism, Intersectionalism, Womanism, Black Feminism, Black Nationalism, and BlackLivesMatter, all of which follow their own versions of the feminist ideology. A superficial dictionary definition is simply not enough to answer the question of what feminism is.
