Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Belief in or advocacy of women's social, political, and economic rights, especially with regard to equality of the sexes.
  • noun The movement organized around this belief.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The presence of specifically feminine characteristics in the male.
  • noun The qualities of females.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A social theory or political movement arguing that legal and social restrictions on females must be removed in order to bring about equality of both sexes in all aspects of public and private life.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the movement aimed at equal rights for women
  • noun a doctrine that advocates equal rights for women

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French féminisme circa 1837, ultimately from Latin fēminīnus, from fēmina ("woman"). First recorded in English in 1851, originally meaning "the state of being feminine." Sense of "advocacy of women's rights" is from 1895.

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Examples

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  • "This morning I woke up happy. I laid in bed 45 minutes after my alarm rang just to take it in: the feel of my sheets, my legs scissoring to the rhythm of the hopeful word that kept flipping through my mind: feminism. When does one ever wake up with that? With a four syllable word like that flipping by? Like a flip book. Only it's the same image every time. Only it doesn't move. Only it doesn't change. Only it changes everything."

    - Youth Group Girls

    April 4, 2007

  • "Legs scissoring to the rhythm?" Sounds pretty hot. Go feminism!

    April 14, 2007

  • Bumper sticker politics:

    Feminism is the radical notion

    that women are people

    P.S. I think I added scissoring last night :)

    April 14, 2007

  • The radical concept that women are people, too.

    July 14, 2008