The feminist movement has grown exponentially in recent years, gaining widespread traction across varying demographics and large parts of the world. The ridicule that has previously accompanied the term is becoming less and less prevalent and slowly but surely, people are beginning to understand what being a feminist means.
However, the backlash is not over; the current US President and his supporters are evidence of that. Further evidence is the continued use of the term "feminazi." A simple twitter search of #feminazi reveals a seemingly endless stream of degrading and offensive tweets, most recently hurling criticism at the women's march and anyone with a negative opinion of the anti-abortion regulations Donald Trump has instituted.
Some of the more horrifying twitter accounts consistently dishing out "#feminazi"s are handles such as @silenceconsent and @10PercentPutin. They're using the word to describe and denounce people participating in the feminist movement and its efforts to achieve equality and safety for both men and women of all genders, races, and nationalities all across the world. By using the term feminazi in reference to these endeavors, not only is feminism degraded but so are the approximately 6 million Jewish people that lost there lives during the actual Holocaust, as well as the countless others who survived it.
"Feminazi" first showed up in the 1990s when talk show host Rush Limbaugh introduced it to describe feminists who he described as "obsessed with perpetuating a modern-day holocaust: abortion."
There's enough wrong with that as it is. Comparing the massive genocide of a group of people to a woman's right to choose is absolutely ridiculous. And implying that the pro-choice movement is militant is just not correct. Something a lot of people don't seem to understand: few women (dare I say no women?) are going around willfully getting pregnant just so they can go get an abortion. That's not a thing. No matter how many times misogynists say so, there is no determination among women to kill their babies, and fun fact, abortion is not the murder of a child. It's. Just. Not.
So, if feminazi wasn't horrifying enough at its inception, it quickly began to stray from its original definitive to become a much broader term, one applied to essentially any woman who dared to call herself a feminist or fight for women's rights.
Today, it has become a word thrown around with little regard for its implications, the disrespect it holds, and the cruelty it carries. #Feminazi is often posted in connection to gifs of Hitler. Hitler. The ignorance that it takes to be able to in good conscience make any kind of joke about the Holocaust is terrifying. Terrifying, but unfortunately unsurprising. There are 190 active KKK groups in the US, Black Lives Matter is branded a terrorist organization, and advocates for women are associated with Nazis.
Stop using the word feminazi. Stop degrading a genocide. Stop devaluing women. Stop telling us that our fight to help women all over the world achieve basic human rights, to give women control of their bodies, to allow women the same privileges as men, to create equality among women of all races––stop telling us that that fight is the same as the unwarranted and groundless murder of millions of people, because it's not. Do not associate us that carnage, because abortion is not murder. Our rights are not a joke. Equality has not been reached, not in the United States or any other country. Feminism is important and it is necessary and it is at the front of an uphill battle that is far from over. Do not attempt to discredit a movement that protects millions of people from the abuse of those who consider them to be lesser. Do not.
