When was the last time you used the word feminist and why?

I believe the most recent time was when I posted something on a thread here to dispel the assumption that someone had that all gun owners and weapon rights advocates were right wing conservative republicans. Being a fairly radical pro-feminist green-anarchist, I had to set something straight.

Within the word “feminista” while describing a scene from Futurama to a friend last week.

I never use the word in a serious manner because I don’t think I’ve ever met a ‘real feminist’....whatever that is. I hear the word used as a derogatory term more often to describe a woman who someone feels is pretentious or snobby towards men. One who feels superior to men, thinks they are useless and doesnt need them etc. It’s usually guys that are intimidated by independent women. Although of course this is wrong to label a woman as such for such a dumb reason. I’m just telling you how I see people use the word.

@Blackberry You’ve met me, :) .. as much as Fluther is a meeting ground.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Cool :) although, I’m not really sure how to define a feminist to be honest lol.

@Blackberry There is no dearth of definitions. You have to ask each person how they define it. We can talk sometime later about how I define it.

I don’t even know. I don’t use the word in memorable ways, I guess.

I’m with @kenmc. I really don’t recall. I don’t think that I ever talk about feminism.

Thanks guys.. keep ‘em coming…these are exactly what I needed.

Last I remember using the word, I was recommending that someone read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. I said that it was like 1984, but with more of a feminist angle.

@hobbitsubculture I loved that book!

I last used the word about 3 hours ago to describe what Third Wave Foundation is to my parents. I applied there for work, and so definitely I used it in a positive way.

I used the word feminist in a thread a week or so back—something about who has it harder, men or women? I used it as a way to describe myself. I am a feminist, after all.

If I used it, it would have been repeating someone else who said it. Mirroring someone else’s comment in a reply or response. I otherwise never use the word.

I think the last time I used the word was about 2 years ago, at another social Q&A site. I answered a question asking who among us considered themselves to be a feminist. In that answer, I said that I’m a feminist.

I use the word multiple times pretty much every day, so I really have no way of keeping track when I say it…I’m in women’s studies and sexuality studies at my university, so it comes up a lot. I always use it in a positive way, as I self-identify as a feminist.

I almost never say the word feminist. But I do think a few weeks ago, I was having a conversation with my boyfriend and pubic hair and he alluded to the fact that he found it unpleasant to do certain things when I hadn’t shaven down there. I was irritated and I believe I said something like “You’re lucky I’m not some hardcore feminist or hippie”.

I don’t use the word all that often but if I do it’s usually in a “discussion” with another feminist who is trying to explain to me why I’m not, why I can’t be a feminist because of one or another thing I disagree with them about or something I happen to view or talk about in less black and white way than they might. Or, I might use the word in a “discussion” with some talking-point, buzz-word, reactionary, Rush Limbaugh type neanderthal but, really, I try to avoid both the above types of encounters and conversations so I don’t use the word that much. But to answer your a question, I don’t remember exactly the last time I actually used the word. It’s been some time.

I love “The Handmaid’s Tale” too! It’s funny, I read it sometime in the late 80’s I’d say, and my Dad, who was a voracious reader, just saw it about and picked it up and read it. He was a plain spoken kind of guy, intelligent but not very eloquent. He says to me, when he finishes it, in summation, “well, I guess she’s what you would call one of those feminists, huh?” Yeah, Dad. Anyways, recently, I was talking with a woman I work with about how I never changed my name when I got married. She thought I had done it as a statement of identity and independance, of “feminism”. I told her that it really had nothing to do with feminism in my case. I just never got around to changing my name and I didn’t feel it was a big deal. To this day I use my maiden name and married name interchangably. She said that “Well, I DID think of it as a feminist act!!!”

I used it when debating about how loaded the term femme-nazi was and whether the person who brought it up was right too.

I used it a couple days ago to describe myself. I think that anyone who’s male and isn’t a feminist should probably apologize to their mothers…right…now.

Including to myself? Earlier today, in what was truly an amazing rebuttal to a discussion I was redoing in the car after having it with someone today (the original conversation didn’t really have anything to do with feminism so much as Charles Manson, but it’s amazing how redoing a conversation with myself can make it go the way that I want it to). Out loud? Yesterday, when I was talking with my Medieval teacher about my thesis for a paper (how Romeo & Juliet and other “romances” teach our young women to have toxic, often abusive relationships – which, it turns out, is more of a Master’s thesis than an 8 page research paper thesis, so should I decide to get a Master’s in History, I already have that.) It then turned into a discussion about what these stories were meant to be, how the author’s saw them, women’s role in society throughout the ages, and eventually to how I wanted to take a Women’s Study class, but the one I got into turned into more of a basic intro with a lot of “sit in a circle and sing Kumbaya” than a lecture on the different feminist philosophies, so I dropped it.

Yesterday. Told the following to a friend:
Question: How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Answer: That’s not funny!

@papayalily LOL. I was going to make a distinction between the last time I used the word feminist in my head and the last time I actually used the word out loud but I thought it might sound crazy. Thank you so much for doing what I could not do, my friend!

And regarding the truly amazing rebuttals to an argument that get redone in our cars? Where the hell are we when we need us? Asleep at the wheel, that’s where, asleep at the wheel that we will soon encounter in our cars when it doesn’t count anymore. That’s where we are! Dammit! Too little, too late!

@lillycoyote That Seinfeld episode where George keeps going back to give the comebacks he comes up with in his car? It spoke to my soul in ways that it really shouldn’t have…

@papayalily I know my better lily half, I know. I’m right there with you.

I have stopped using the word to describe myself since I started calling myself a humanist for reasons I will not go into here. I generally only use the word in regards to my women’s studies classes. I don’t use it in a derogatory manner and I don’t hear it much in a derogatory manner, though, if I do, I try to keep my cool and explain to whomever is using it in a derogatory fashion what feminism means in today’s world.

Last night, when discussing the sacking of a football commentator for sexist remarks about a female colleague and a female match official, and the remarkable societal changes that feminism, although widely derided, has managed to effect.

I was talking with some people about theology and its traditional portrayal of human being-in-the-world literally has been identical with white male bourgeois European being-in-the world. I expressed that the advent of feminist theologies was and continues to be desperately needed. I also had to point out that being feminist does not equate with being feminine, sigh.

@iamthemob Great point.

It’s actually Margaret Cho’s point. But yeah, it’s a great one. ;-)

@papayalily I loved reading your response.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Aww. Which part? (I could use some ego stroking today)

@papayalily This one “Yesterday, when I was talking with my Medieval teacher about my thesis for a paper (how Romeo & Juliet and other “romances” teach our young women to have toxic, often abusive relationships – which, it turns out, is more of a Master’s thesis than an 8 page research paper thesis, so should I decide to get a Master’s in History, I already have that.)”

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I actually am starting to mull over also getting a Master’s in British History. I really love the classes, and I feel like already having a thesis makes half the work done (having seen a couple of my friends sorta loose it after not coming up with a topic…). I’m very excited to read all these stories – I just burned Abelard and Heloise to cd so I can listen in my car. And then yell at Abelard for being such a dick.

@papayalily How exciting – I love when people continue their education.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir If I could figure out a way to never have to write papers, I’d never stop going to school (even if it was just one class at a time). Even when I’m not in school, I’m reading something scholarly.

@papayalily Easy, just audit classes.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir They make you pay for them, and then you don’t get the piece of paper.

@papayalily Yes, but you don’t care about that, right?

@Simone_De_Beauvoir No, I do – otherwise, there’s no reason for me to take the class instead of simply reading the books. Plus, I really like being able to make people admit that I’m right and they’re wrong.

@papayalily All right, well then you have to do the papers, lol.

@papayalily & @Simone_De_Beauvoir Yea, that’s why after I got my first degree I mostly just read a lot. In a lot of ways, it feels like I got way more education in the years since then. Of course, that makes me prone to saying potentially smart things, and then all my family is like “So when are you going to go back to school?” Apparently school is the only natural outcome of education, and vice versa.

When I explained feminism to my 15-year-old daughter who really didn’t know what this was. She took things for granted that girls or women in the 60ies, 70ies and 80ies had to fight for.