Time Is Wondering If You’d Like To Ban The Word Feminist

The American weekly gets slammed for including “feminist” to its annual word banishment poll.

WrittenBy:Sushant Kumar
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Time magazine decided to take charge of word policing, the fourth time, by releasing its annual “word banishment poll”. And guess what words like “yaaasssss”, “bae” and “feminist” have in common? Well, according to Time, these words may drive you to “seek out the nearest the pair of chopsticks and thrust them through your own eardrums like straws through plastic lids [sic]”.

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Yes sir, the American weekly has added the word “feminist” to a laundry list of inane buzzwords and phrases like“I can’t even”, “Said no one ever” and “Sorry not sorry”.

And, sure enough, the author of the piece who happens to be a woman herself (not that it is important), Katy Steinmetz, got more brickbats than bouquets on the internet.

Steinmetz rationale behind banning the word goes like this:

“You have nothing against feminism itself, but when did it become a thing that every celebrity had to state their position on whether this word applies to them, like some politician declaring a party? Let’s stick to the issues and quit throwing this label around like ticker tape at a Susan B. Anthony parade.”

While we understand that an online poll can possibly not expel a word “off the island”, clubbing feminist with numerous other internet slangs is plain daft if not insensitive. The editor has apologised for adding feminist to the list of words to be banned, but did not take it off the list. And the last time we checked on Friday, “feminist” was leading the list with 48 per cent votes, way ahead of the “bae”, which at 12 per cent was second on the list.

We decided to speak to a couple of our own flag-bearers of feminism and other usual suspects to see what they think of Time pulling off a Times of India.

Most thought that the poll speaks more about Time’s insecurity than of feminists or how they are perceived. Kavita Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women’s Association, and a regular on television debates on women’s issues, said, “Anyone who believes that men and women should have equal rights is a feminist. This poll says a lot more about Time magazine’s mind-set, and their insecurity and ignorance than about feminism.”

Feminism, said Krishnan, is not something you can put to an internet poll and vote out. “It is a concept that young men and women are embracing daily as a way of challenging their world.”

Even for someone who has a “horror” for all institutionalised schools of thought that end with “isms”, Madhu Kishwar, called Time’s move “nonsensical”. “I am very critical of feminism but you don’t remove terms you don’t like from the dictionary,” she said.

Rimple Mehta, who works as an assistant professor at the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University, said, “It’s a curious poll, especially if you see the other words on the list. Half of them don’t mean anything at all. And to think that one would put the word feminist among it is just absurd.”

Mehta said that language is an important tool of patriarchal control. “The word feminist challenges this control. The word feminist brings with it the fear that the voices that had been silenced for so long will now have to be heard. This poll is a reflection of this fear.”

However, Time magazine’s suggestion seemed to have hit home with a fair share of supporters who saw no problem with banishing the word “feminist”. A member of Confidare India Men’s Right Centre said she had “nothing to do with the word feminism”. That didn’t stop her though from elaborating on why it should be banned. “Feminism is only for young women. There is nothing for old women, there is nothing for little girls, who are separated from their fathers because of their mother’s ego. It has nothing for men,” she said adding that men are harassed as much, if not more, than women. Interestingly, Confidare India is set to celebrate International Men’s Day on November 19.

Some people sided with Time’s logic that throwing the word as a label distracts from the real issues at hand. Indeed, overusing any word, especially in news, tends to rob it of its importance. “Eventually, if everyone’s a feminist, or claims to be one, what’s the difference between Virginia Woolf and a guy in Hauz Khas who has a problem with his girlfriend wearing hot pants, but maintains he’s a hardcore feminist? So, yeah, ban the word. If someone’s a feminist, it doesn’t need stating and vice-versa,” said a misanthrope who did not wish to be named for fear of persecution.

With inputs from Sakshi Chandra

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