In less than 20 words, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines feminism.
According to Merriam-Webster, feminism is, “the theory of political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.” However, to many Americans, feminism takes on different meanings. In the midst of a politically-charged climate, feminism is a loaded word.
Fighting stereotypes
Lysa Salsbury, director of the University of Idaho Women’s Center, said she sees a lot of young women who reject the feminist label.
“It’s a very political word, it’s a very strong label to accept,” Salsbury said. “Even though I think feminism is very inclusive and not a bad word, I definitely don’t judge anyone who doesn’t want to claim that label for themselves.”
She said she believes the main force working against feminism is a lack of understanding.
“We fear our ignorance, we’re scared of things that we don’t know about,” Salsbury said. “We’re much more likely to dismiss them or demonize them if we don’t understand.”
Salsbury said feminism has been vilified, and no one wants to associate with the enemy. The Women’s Center director regularly sees students who claim not to be feminists, but who then tell her about their beliefs and ideals that are inherently feminist. A lot of times, she said people perceive feminism as hating men or pitting the genders against each other.
“I’m certainly not a feminist in the way that many people see that word,” Salsbury said.
Hailey Johnson, a UI sophomore and member of the Society of Women Engineers, said she thinks people have the wrong idea about the goals of the women’s movement.
“The purpose of it is to empower women, to be able to do what they want. It’s also to speak up for the people who can’t speak up for themselves,” Johnson said.
Like Salsbury, Johnson said she believes opposition to the women’s movement is rooted in unease.
“It’s rooted in fear of women in general, maybe. Women overtaking men’s careers or jobs. Society has ordained jobs, president, doctors, congress, engineering,” she said.
Mary Jo Hamilton, one of the women who helped organize the Moscow Women’s March in January, has been a feminist her entire life. She attended college in Wisconsin in the 60s, during the Vietnam War era. Hamilton said some of her first experiences in activism were participating in sit-ins to protest the war.
She said she can’t understand why negative stereotypes regarding feminism are being perpetuated.
“I think it’s kind of lazy thinking when you have to characterize everything, you’re not looking at the whole person,” Hamilton said. “You’re not attempting to understand what they’re thinking. I just don’t think those stereotypes are true.”
Similar to Hamilton’s sentiments, Salsbury said the feminist movement generally provides a welcome and diverse community. However, she said sometimes its lack of structure can be a downside.
“The feminism movement has suffered somewhat by its lack of definition,” Salsbury said. “But that’s feminism — you don’t want to put yourself in a box.”
For Salsbury, it’s difficult to define feminism. She said women are such a group of rich and complex individuals they can’t be lumped together entirely. This diversity and the ways in which the life experiences of women differ dramatically are what Salsbury said add wealth to the movement.
“It’s counterproductive to make assumptions about people based on this narrow group of definitions,” Salsbury said.
Building solidarity
For Hamilton, feminism is about community.
She said she believes people feel their strongest and most supported when surrounded by peers, which is a large part of why she is actively involved in the movement.
“What people want is community, and if you’re segregating everybody out because they don’t look the same, or believe the same, it destroys the community,” Hamilton said. “Then you feel powerless.”
Salsbury said community is important for women as well, and they should focus on common ground, rather than on differences. One of the main differences she said people focus on is reproductive rights. Regardless of differing opinions about women’s reproductive health, Salsbury said there are many issues women can meet in the middle on.
“No matter what your life is like, there’s probably some things as women we can all agree on,” she said. “If we can unite around the common causes that we have, that would be a powerful thing.”
Salsbury said she thinks another large barrier in the women’s movement has to do with the perception of professional women.
“I think there are a lot of people who think politically or professionally ambitious women accuse them for being very cutthroat or putting their peers down,” Salsbury said.
She said that this hasn’t been her experience at all with female leadership. Rather, Salsbury said the female leaders she’s interacted with have been generous, encouraging and collaborative — characteristics Salsbury said she also tries to embody as a leader.
“It’s not to say that there aren’t women who are very cutthroat, but it’s not the norm,” she said.
Another large issue confronting solidarity in the feminist movement is its historic exclusion of women of color, minorities and trans women.
Denessy Rodriguez, a UI sophomore, is a large supporter for women of color in the women’s movement. One of the biggest issues, she said, is the amount of misinformation out there, such as information regarding the wage gap.
“Currently they mention how women get 77 cents to a man’s dollar, but that’s white women,” Rodriguez said.
She said that black women and women of color actually make much less than this, and that the feminist movement includes a diverse range of women who often feel overlooked. At the women’s march, Rodriguez said she felt that Salsbury’s speech pushed back against this.
“Lysa talked about being here for all kinds of women, younger women, older women, disabled women, women of color, conservative women, liberal women,” she said. “Which is a piece that gets ignored a lot of the time.”
Rodriquez said that Moscow did a good job trying to be intersectional, but at times it felt obliged.
“You want people to recognize the intersections that come with feminism, but you don’t want it to feel forced,” she said.
Rodriguez said that some of the responsibility falls to women of color to use their knowledge to help educate others, while other women should take a second to step into someone else’s shoes. She said that looking at the world through the eyes of another demographic can be enlightening.
“I saw a good quote today, ‘It’s not about speaking up for these marginalized women, it’s about passing the mic and letting them speak up for themselves’,” Rodriguez said.
Marching on
On Jan. 21, nearly 3,000 people gathered in downtown Moscow for the Women’s March — far more than Hamilton ever expected when she helped organize the event.
“When we first started organizing, we went to get a permit for the park, and they wanted to know how many people and I said probably about 40,” she said.
When more than 700 people reserved to attend on Facebook and nearly 3,000 people showed up for the march, Hamilton said she was astounded and had to go back to the police station and update them on the numbers they were expecting.
Hamilton said the Women’s March had two goals. First, to make sure it wasn’t a protest and to support human rights. Second, they wanted people to see that they had a community they felt strong and safe in.
Johnson said she attended the march, and yet she still feels marginalized in her everyday life. As an electrical engineering major, she said she’s entering a field composed nearly entirely of men.
“I get interrupted all the time,” Johnson said. “In meetings, in class, a lot of females don’t tend to lend their opinions on things because no one is going to listen to them anyways.”
Salsbury said the needs of women today are a lot different than needs of women in the past, that today women have a lot of legislation protecting them, but not everything is resolved.
“I think that some of those issues are still concerning to young women,” Salsbury said. “The glass ceiling still exists, violence against women is still prevalent, but I think that we do have legislation that has protected women from some of the things that they used to have to endure.”
Salsbury said in many ways, women are still being set against each other, in competition rather than collaboration, especially with the prevalence of a white, male patriarchal society. Salsbury said for a long time she felt like the women’s movement was coming easy, but now, it feels like an uphill battle.
“The most important thing we have to do as women is listen to one another,” Salsbury said. “In a patriarchal society, women are pitted against each other. They are placed in competition against each other for resources, for men, for whatever it may be. I think we need to consciously work against this.”