The term “feminazi” is one of the most controversial words currently used. It is because of its strong emotional content, when it refers to Nazism, and because it is also linked to a topic that greatly polarizes public opinion: feminism.
And nowadays it is very common to find people who criticize this political movement and philosophical current centered on women, pointing out that “feminism” and “feminazism” are synonyms. As we will see, there are many reasons to distinguish between both concepts.
Throughout this article we will see What are the differences between “feminazi” and “feminist”? and why it is a mistake to confuse both words.
The 4 differences between “feminazi” and “feminist”
This is a summary of the differences that we can find between feminist and feminazi, and that will give you reasons not to use them interchangeably.
1. One is philosophically worked, the other is not
The first thing to point out the differences that exist between the feminist and the “feminazi” is that, while the first concept It has been worked on for decades by a large number of philosophers (and, to a lesser extent, male philosophers) there is not much theoretical concreteness in the meaning of the second.
For example, feminism has been worked on by thinkers such as Judith Butler from a perspective that seeks to abolish gender (understood simply as a social construct), while other currents, such as the feminism of difference, seek to delve deeper into the meaning of being woman beyond the male vision on this matter.
The word “feminazi,” on the other hand, was created in the 1990s by the American radio host and commentator Rush Limbaugh, known for being sympathetic to conservative ideology, and who consequently failed to describe with too much nuance what it would consist of as a social phenomenon. something called “feminazism”.
Thus, there is a clear asymmetry between the phenomenon of feminism, which for decades has produced very diverse ways of addressing the issue of discrimination against women (sometimes complementary, sometimes directly opposed to each other and the cause of battles within feminism itself). ), and the concept of feminazi, which is totally devoid of nuances and which no one has managed to work on philosophically.
2. The functions of both terms are different
The word feminism was born as a derogatory term, but soon women’s rights activists They appropriated it and turned it into the name of their political and intellectual movement Therefore, its usefulness is to label a set of lines of thought and philosophical development, as well as forms of political activism and social movements.
On the other hand, the word “feminazi” is not capable of describing a more or less neutral or devoid of emotions, because Its reason for being is that of a pejorative term which only exists to criticize or attack certain groups of people.
That is why many people criticize the simple use of the word “feminazi”, because it is simply there to express an opposition to feminism that goes to the point of attributing to it negative properties typical of an ideology capable of producing genocides.
3. “Feminism” designates a phenomenon that is easy to define, “feminazi” does not.
Currently, the term “feminism” is used as a descriptive term, which serves to designate a social phenomenon that takes place in contemporary society and in a wide variety of countries.
Instead, The word “feminazi” does not designate a specific social phenomenon , since to begin with it is not related to a main idea that serves to indicate where the group of people who participate in “feminazism” begins and where it ends (even in an approximate, not exact way). We have the reason for this in the two previous sections: it has not been developed theoretically and is simply born as a pejorative label.
4. Ferminism is a social movement; feminism, no
This is possibly the main difference between “feminist” and “feminazi”. People who consider themselves feminists can be grouped into a group that can be analyzed specifically by sociology, because they share certain themes, certain symbols and common concerns that are related to the situation of women.
This does not happen with the concept of “the feminazi”, which cannot be attributed to a specific group Today there is simply no social fabric of people who feel identified with political pretensions similar to those of Nazism and who share spaces or demands with feminism.
Obviously, we can always blur the meaning of Nazism to make it correspond to certain authoritarian or even extreme right-wing attitudes that can be detected in people who call themselves feminists and who have a certain internal organization and ability to mobilize people.
However, to do this we must leave behind the most characteristic features of real Nazis: their ideas of ethnostates (the creation of states assigned to groups of people seen as impossible to mix), the desire to physically exterminate the enemy within ( that lives within one’s own country), corporatism (with vertical unions that carry the will of the leader to all levels of society), and certain mystical and superstitious ideas that explain the origin of the lineages that make up society.
