The misuse of the word “feminism”

I have recently come across many women who bash men and criticize them. Their comments make men sound like evil, selfish monsters who think of themselves only. Some women took their negativity to the next level by saying men only want to bring down women and that they are threatened by them…

But why?
Why do some women say that?
Why do they get so defensive and aggressive?

I spent a lot of time thinking of why such things would ever be said since I have never experienced such a thing myself, and I did not want to directly judge those women.

I reached the conclusion that one of the main reasons women would assume all men are like that is that they must have been abused at some point in their life by men; maybe not physically, maybe mentally and psychologically. And that happens to some people depending on the environment they have been raised in or lived in.
Some women are also like that because (maybe) they have been emotionally hurt.

But I think a lot of times it is a trend, some do not have a direct reason. They just assume men are like that because of stories they have heard that might or might not be true. Stories and experiences that are not directly linked to them.

I also think the word feminism was overused in these cases. Those women would say they are feminists when I bet they don’t even know what it means.

The Merriam dictionary defines feminism as “a theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes” (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feminism)
It does not say anything about men-bashing or hating them?
So why misuse and overuse the word?
Feminism has a long history where it first appeared in France and the Netherlands in 1872, and it was to create social equality between both genders. In the 1890’s, Britain was introduced to feminism, and the United States in the 1910’s. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_feminism)

Betty Friedman and Betty Ford are both famous feminists who fought for social equality and women empowerment, but have not bashed men and degraded them in order to empower women. So why should the modern women do that?

Yes, there are men out there that are not so great, just like there are women who could be avoided as well. So it is not about the gender of the individual, its about the individual himself.

If we are going to judge others we might as well judge them right. And that means we do not judge them based on their gender, age, race, or job title; we judge them based on who they are as human beings.

Fatma Bujsaim
11/7/2011