Lorin Basden Arnold's Definition Of Feminism

The official definition of feminism, defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is “the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities”. The issue with this definition is that it does not give an accurate view of the wide range of feminism. This definition is also not consistent throughout society. Dictionary.com, states that feminism is “the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men”. This is an issue. Even though these definitions are similar, how are we supposed to understand this if we do not have a consistent definition? This is a topic is becoming increasingly popular in the last few years. It has become at the top one percent of lookups on Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

Arnold starts by reviewing previous studies that have been done in this area of interest. It includes points like the idea that college women give more positive evaluations when the terms women’s movement are used rather that feminism. The author questions what words the students use to describe feminism, and if they are positive, negative, or neutral, are there clearly definable groups that these responses can be categorized by, and what do these words suggest. She also questions if the words that they use to describe feminism relate to how the students define themselves in relation to feminist and if their groupings of the descriptions also affect

These studies were done at different times thought out history, and were conducted differently, yet, they all had the same outcomes. In general, all the men and women in these studies outlined the same conditions and the same opinions. Feminism is something that most people will not directly identify with, depending on their own definitions of it. Even if they do not state they identify with it, most people agree with the general ideal of feminism, without even knowing it. These studies outline this perfectly. They perfectly answer the questions of what is the definition of feminism, and what are college students, and other peoples, views are on feminism. The inconsistency of our definitions has cause more categories of identification in relation to feminism to spring up. Most college students have very similar definitions of feminism, in relation to these categories, and these different definitions cause them to think differently about their identification with feminism. We need to do further research into whether giving students a definite definition of feminism will change their views on their self-identification as feminists or non-feminists. We also need to do more research on the history of the definition of feminism and the roles the media and society has on this subject