feminism

What it means

1. countableuncountableA 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.

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

   2017, Tim Carvell [et al.], “Confederacy”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 4, episode 26, John Oliver (actor), Warner Bros. Television, via HBO

   3 more examples

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

   1926 November 27, “The Talk of the Town”, in The New Yorker, →ISSN, page 17

   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.

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

   Nothing untrue or over the top — it's gotta be sincere. I do it for men, too. My brand of feminism is rooted in equality."

   2024 August 22, Marisa Martinez, quoting lady_fresh, “Women Are Sharing Their Preferred Acts Of Microfeminism”, in BuzzFeed, archived from the original on 27 Aug 2024

2. countableobsoleteuncountableThe state of being feminine; femininity.First known use 1851; less common after 1895

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

   1875 July 24, The Medical Times and Gazette, volume II, page 105

In a sentence

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

1926 November 27, “The Talk of the Town”, in The New Yorker, →ISSN, page 17

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*dʰeh₁(y)-
2. Proto-Indo-European*dʰeh₁-m̥h₁n-éh₂
3. Proto-Italic*θēmanā
4. Proto-Italic*fēmanā
5. Latinfēmina
6. Latinfēminīnu
7. Frenchféminin
8. Frenchféminisme
9. Englishfeminism

From French féminisme circa 1837, ultimately from Latin fēminīnus, from fēmina (“woman”). In the original sense of “women's movement or advocacy”, the French word was probably directly derived from fēmina, as if from Neo-Latin feminismus. By surface analysis, feminine + -ism. First recorded in English in 1851, originally meaning “the state of being feminine”. Sense of “advocacy of women's rights” is from 1895.

First known use: 1851; less common after 1895