--- description: Robin Morgan is a co-founder, with Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda, of the Women's Media Center title: Robin Morgan on Why 'Feminist' Is a 21st Century Word image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte9b62655b9df429e/698768f9f887dc385fe88644/robin-morgan-jane-fonda-gloria-steinem-feminist.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Living](/tag/time-section-living/) ## Living Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # _Feminist_ Is a 21st Century Word  by [Robin Morgan](/author/robin-morgan/)  ## Robin Morgan Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Nov 17, 2014 3:54 PM CUT  From left: Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda and Robin Morgan, co-founders of the Women's Media Center on CBS This Morning in New York City on Sept. 18, 2013 From left: Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda and Robin Morgan, co-founders of the Women's Media Center on CBS This Morning in New York City on Sept. 18, 2013CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images  by [Robin Morgan](/author/robin-morgan/)  ## Robin Morgan Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Nov 17, 2014 3:54 PM CUT I know, I know, TIME’s annual [word-banning poll](http://time.com/3576870/worst-words-poll-2014/ "undefined") is meant as a joke, and this year’s inclusion of the word _feminist_ wasn’t an attempt to end a movement. But as a writer — and feminist who naturally has no sense of humor — banning words feels, well, uncomfortable. The fault lies in the usage or overusage, not the word — even dumb or faddish words. _Feminist_ is neither of those. Nevertheless, I once loathed it. In 1968, while organizing the first protest against the Miss America Pageant, I called myself a “women’s liberationist,” because “feminist” seemed so 19th century: ladies scooting around in hoop skirts with ringlet curls cascading over their ears! What an ignoramus I was. But school hadn’t taught me who they really were, and the media hadn’t either. We Americans forget or rewrite even our recent history, and accomplishments of any group not pale and male have tended to get downplayed or erased — one reason why [Gloria Steinem](http://content.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,1094264687001%5F2086963,00.html "undefined"),[ Jane Fonda](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2088024,00.html "undefined") and I founded [the Women’s Media Center](http://www.womensmediacenter.com/ "undefined"): to make women visible and powerful in media. No, it took assembling and researching my anthology [_Sisterhood Is Powerful_](http://www.amazon.com/Sisterhood-Is-Powerful-Robin-Morgan/dp/0394705394 "undefined") to teach me about the word _feminism_. I had no clue that feminists had been a major (or leading) presence in every social-justice movement in the U.S. time line: the revolutionary war, the campaigns to abolish slavery, debtors’ prisons and sweatshops; mobilizations for suffrage, prison reform, equal credit; fights to establish social security, unions, universal childhood education, halfway houses, free libraries; plus the environmentalism, antiwar and peace movements. And more. By 1970, I was a feminist. Throughout that decade, feminism was targeted for ridicule. Here’s how it plays: first they ignore you, then laugh at you, then prosecute you, then try to co-opt you, then — once you win — they claim they gave you your rights: after a century of women organizing, protesting, being jailed, going on hunger strikes and being brutally force-fed, “they” gave women the vote. We outlasted being a joke only to find our adversaries had repositioned “feminist” as synonymous with “lesbian” — therefore oooh, “dangerous.” These days — given recent wins toward marriage equality and the end of “don’t ask don’t tell” in the military, not to mention the popularity of _Orange Is the New Black_ — it’s strange to recall how, in the ’70s, that connotation scared many heterosexual women away from claiming the word _feminist_. But at least it gave birth to a witty button of which I’ve always been especially fond: “How dare you assume I’m straight?!” Yet in the 1980s the word was still being avoided. You’d hear maddening contradictions like “I’m no feminist, but …” after which feminist statements would pour from the speaker’s mouth. Meanwhile, women’s-rights activists of color preferred culturally organic versions: _womanist_ among African Americans, _mujerista_ among Latinas. I began using _feminisms_ to more accurately depict and affirm such a richness of constituencies. Furthermore, those of us working in the global women’s movement found it fitting to celebrate what I termed a “multiplicity of feminisms.” No matter the name, the movement kept growing. Along the way, the word absorbed the identity politics of the 1980s and ’90s, ergo cultural feminism, radical feminism, liberal/reform feminism, electoral feminism, academic feminism, ecofeminism, lesbian feminism, Marxist feminism, socialist feminism — and at times hybrids of the above. Flash-forward to today when, despite predictions to the contrary, young women are furiously active online and off, and are adopting “the _F_ word” with far greater ease and rapidity than previous feminists. Women of color have embraced the words _feminism_ and _feminist_ as their own, along with women all over the world, including Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. As we move into 2015, feminism is suddenly hot; celebrities want to identify with it. While such irony makes me smile wryly, I know we live in a celebrity culture and this brings more attention to issues like equal pay, full reproductive rights, and ending violence against women. I also know that sincere women (and men of conscience), celebs or not, will stay with the word and what it stands for. Others will just peel off when the next flavor of the month comes along. Either way, the inexorable forward trajectory of this global movement persists, powered by women in Nepal’s rice paddies fighting for literacy rights; women in Kenya’s Green Belt Movement planting trees for microbusiness and the environment; Texas housewives in solidarity with immigrant women to bring and keep families together; and survivors speaking out about prostitution not being “sex work” or “just another job,” but a human-rights violation. From boardroom to Planned Parenthood clinic, this is feminism. The dictionary definition is simple: “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.” Anyone who can’t support something that commonsensical and fair is part of a vanishing breed: well over half of all American women and more than 30% of American men approve of the word — the percentages running even higher in communities of color and internationally. But I confess that for me feminism means something more profound. It means freeing a political force: the power, energy and intelligence of half the human species hitherto ignored or silenced. More than any other time in history, that force is needed to save this imperiled blue planet. Feminism, for me, is the politics of the 21st century. [_Robin Morgan_](http://www.robinmorgan.net/ "undefined")_, the_ [_author of 22 books_](http://www.amazon.com/Robin-Morgan/e/B001ITX4ZU "undefined")_, hosts_ [Women’s Media Center Live With Robin Morgan](http://www.wmclive.com/ "undefined") _(syndicated radio, iTunes, and wmcLive.com)._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3588846/time-apologizes-feminist-word-poll-robin-morgan/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3588846/time-apologizes-feminist-word-poll-robin-morgan/"},"headline":"Feminist Is a 21st Century Word","datePublished":"2014-11-17T15:54:53.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:54:48.975Z","description":"Robin Morgan is an author, activist and feminist. 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