Skip to main content

single word requests - What is the synonym/antonym for "feminist"/"feminism"?


I am looking for a word or phrase that are to men's rights as the words feminist/feminism are to women rights.


And will the word or phrase be called a synonym or antonym?



Answer



Etymologically "Feminism" is derived from "female" and historically it has referred to women's rights. But the term — as a sociological term as well as a social movement — has evolved in many ways, so while for some "feminism" is the struggle for women's rights in society, others will explain that feminism is the struggle to remove gender-biases from society, and as such applies to men's rights as well as women's.


So when you're looking for the complementary term to feminism, you need to know exactly which meaning of feminism you're going for, because in many contexts "feminism" might be enough for you.


Also, it should be noted that even if we find a term that says "mens' rights" to complement feminism as womens' rights, they will never be entirely parallel in tone and connotation, because mens' rights and women's rights aren't symmetrical. If (some versions of) feminism describes itself as the struggle to achieve equal rights in a male-dominated world, a totally equivalent term would have to imply a similar male struggle, which is, well, a bit of a stretch.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more