The Scarlet F: A Conceptual Re-Engineering of Feminism

Abstract

While feminism is a remarkably powerful tool in recognizing and addressing the harms women face, many individuals are quick to suggest abandoning feminism altogether. So often, feminism faces harsh opposition from outsiders. A comprehensive analysis reveals that the issue lies not in the word but in how feminism is conceptually understood. Historical manifestations, factionalization, and negative stereotypes have all clouded understandings of feminism. For starters, historical manifestations of feminism, such as women's education, suffrage, and reproductive autonomy, shape current understandings. These manifestations, however, exclude marginalized women for the social gain of white, upper-class women. As well, feminism has become exceptionally factionalized; each faction has its own meaningful conception of what feminism is, but the number of conceptions eclipses an understanding of feminism. Negative stereotypes have also tainted feminism as a concept such that outsiders have concepts of feminism as 'man-hating' and 'feminazi'. While untrue, these stereotypes have penetrated public conceptions of feminism. Each of the three issues reveals justified motivation for abandoning feminism. Abandoning feminism certainly removes the aforementioned shortcomings, however, in doing so, women also lose the tool through which they are able to recognize and address the harms they face. Instead of abandoning feminism, I propose a conceptual re-engineering project which aims to ameliorate the harmful shortcomings while working at developing a meaningful, useful concept of feminism. A conceptual re-engineering project promises to evaluate how feminism is understood, identify the cracks in feminism's conceptual foundation, and to repair the cracks by developing an ameliorative concept. Simply put, I will argue for and develop a concept of feminism that avoids harmful shortcomings previously presented while continuing to preserve the spirit of feminism. Rather than abandon feminism, this project marks an effort to develop a meaningful, useful concept of feminism.