feminism

English

Woman suffrage headquarters in Upper Euclid Avenue, Cleveland--A, 1912.

Etymology

From French féminisme circa 1837, ultimately from Latin fēminīnus, from fēmina (“woman”). First recorded in English in 1851, originally meaning "the state of being feminine." Sense of "advocacy of women's rights" is from 1895.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈfɛmɪnɪz(ə)m/
• Hyphenation: fem‧in‧ism

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

feminism (countable and uncountable, plural feminisms)

1. (obsolete) The state of being feminine; femininity. [from 1851; less common after 1895]
   • 1875 July 24, The Medical Times and Gazette, volume II, page 105:

     His hair is delicate and silky, and of a light chesnut[sic]—one of M. Lorrain's signs of feminism.

2. A social theory or political movement which argues that legal and social restrictions on women must be removed in order to bring about equality of the sexes in all aspects of public and private life.
   • 1926 November 27, “The Talk of the Town”, in The New Yorker, ISSN 0028-792X, page 17:

     Women are still forbidden to smoke there... Ardent though we are in feminism, we applaud this stand...

   • 1996, Jan Jindy Pettman, Worlding Women: A feminist international politics, pages ix-x:

     There are by now many feminisms (Tong, 1989; Humm, 1992). Alongside and often overlapping with older-identified distinctions between liberal, socialist, radical and cultural feminisms, for example (important as they are in their different accounts of sexual difference and gender power), are variously named black, third-world ethnic-minority feminisms, themselves far from homogenous.

   • 2017, John Oliver, “Confederacy”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 4, episode 26, written by Tim Carvell; Josh Gondelman; Dan Gurewitch; Jeff Maurer; Ben Silva; Will Tracy; Jill Twiss; Seena Vali; Julie Weiner, HBO, Warner Bros. Television:

     Ooh! “Even the ladies!” #feminism #confedera-she !

Antonyms

• antifeminism

Coordinate terms

• masculism

Hyponyms

• Afro-Brazilian feminism
• Afrofeminism
• Afro-feminism
• analytical feminism
• analytic feminism
• anarcha-feminism
• anarchist feminism
• anarcho-feminism
• anti-abortion feminism
• capitalist feminism
• Chicana feminism
• cultural feminism
• cyberfeminism
• cyborg feminism
• difference feminism
• differential feminism
• dominance feminism
• ecofeminism
• ecological feminism
• embedded feminism
• entrepreneurial feminism
• environmental feminism
• equality feminism
• equity feminism
• Eurofeminism
• Euro-feminism
• evolutionary feminism
• fifth-wave feminism
• first-wave feminism
• fourth-wave feminism
• gender feminism
• Goddess feminism
• Guerrilla Feminism
• guerrilla feminism
• hip-hop feminism
• housewife feminism
• indigenous feminism
• international feminism
• labor feminism
• lipstick feminism
• magical feminism
• mainstream feminism
• material feminism
• maternal feminism
• nego-feminism
• neofeminism
• neo-feminism
• networked feminism
• new feminism
• New Feminism
• opportunity feminism
• Orthodox feminism
• Orthodox Jewish feminism
• outcome feminism
• paleo-feminism
• paleofeminism
• postfeminism
• post-feminism
• postmodern feminism
• postmodernist feminism
• power feminism
• protofeminism
• proto-feminism
• revolutionary feminism
• right-wing feminism
• second-wave feminism
• sex-negative feminism
• sex-positive feminism
• sex-radical feminism
• snail-sense feminism
• social feminism
• social justice feminism
• standpoint feminism
• state feminism
• stealth feminism
• straw feminism
• technofeminism
• third-wave feminism
• trans feminism
• trans-feminism
• transfeminism
• transnational feminism
• victim feminism
• whitestream feminism
• world feminism

 

Derived terms

• antifeminism
• anti-feminism
• nonfeminism
• postfeminism
• post-feminism
• pre-feminism
• prefeminism
• profeminism
• pro-feminism
• pseudo-feminism
• pseudofeminism
• unfeminism

 

Related terms

• femicentric
• feminazi
• feminine
• femininity
• femininize
• feminist
• feministic
• feministical
• feministically
• feminocentric
• feminocentrism

 

Translations

the social theory or political movement

• Arabic: حَرَكَة حُقُوق اَلْمَرْأَة‎ f (ḥarakat ḥuqūq al-marʾa), أُنْثَوِيَّة‎ f (ʾunṯawiyya), نِسْوِيَّة‎ f (niswiyya), فِيمِينِيزْم‎ m (fiminizm)
• Armenian: ֆեմինիզմ (hy) (feminizm)
• Asturian: feminismu m
• Belarusian: феміні́зм m (fjeminízm)
• Bengali: নারীবাদ (naribad)
• Breton: benelouriezh f
• Bulgarian: фемини́зъм m (feminízǎm)
• Catalan: feminisme m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 女權主義 (zh), 女权主义 (zh) (nǚquánzhǔyì), 女性主義 (zh), 女性主义 (zh) (nǚxìngzhǔyì), 女權擴張論, 女权扩张论 (nǚquánkuòzhānglùn)

• Czech: feminismus (cs) m
• Danish: feminisme c
• Dutch: feminisme (nl) n
• Esperanto: feminismo (eo)
• Estonian: feminism (et)
• Finnish: feminismi (fi)
• French: féminisme (fr) m
• Galician: feminismo (gl) m
• Georgian: ფემინიზმი (peminizmi)
• German: Feminismus (de) m
• Greek: φεμινισμός (el) m (feminismós)
• Hebrew: פמיניזם \ פֶמִינִיזְם‎ (he) m (feminízm)
• Hindi: नारीवाद m (nārīvād)
• Hungarian: feminizmus (hu)
• Icelandic: feminismi m
• Ido: feminismo (io)
• Irish: feimineachas m
• Italian: femminismo (it) m

• Japanese: フェミニズム (feminizumu), 女権拡張論 (じょけんかくちょうろん, jokenkakuchōron)
• Korean: 페미니즘 (ko) (peminijeum), 여성주의 (yeoseongjuui)
• Latin: feminismus m
• Latvian: feminisms m
• Lithuanian: feminizmas (lt) m
• Macedonian: фемини́зам m (feminízam)
• Malay: faham kewanitaan, faham feminis, feminisme
• Manx: feminaght f
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: feminisme m

  Nynorsk: feminisme m

• Occitan: feminisme m
• Persian: فمینیسم‎ (fa) (feminism)
• Polish: feminizm (pl) m
• Portuguese: feminismo (pt) m
• Russian: фемини́зм (ru) m (feminízm)
• Scottish Gaelic: boireann-dhligheachas m
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: феминѝзам m

  Roman: feminìzam (sh) m

• Slovak: feminizmus
• Spanish: feminismo (es) m
• Swedish: feminism (sv) c
• Thai: สตรีนิยม (sà-dtrii-ní-yom)
• Turkish: feminizm (tr)
• Ukrainian: феміні́зм m (feminízm)
• Urdu: ناریواد‎ m (nārīvād)
• Vietnamese: chủ nghĩa nam nữ bình quyền, chủ nghỉa nư quyền
• Welsh: ffeministiaeth f
• Yiddish: פֿעמיניזם‎ m (feminizm)

See also

• egalitarianism, equalism (ideology promoting treating the sexes (or other human divisions) equally)

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Swedish

Noun

feminism c

1. feminism

Declension

Declension of feminism
	Uncountable
	Indefinite	Definite
Nominative	feminism	feminismen	—	—
Genitive	feminisms	feminismens	—	—

Related terms

• feminist
• feministisk