Should minority groups modify positions or how they articulate them to accommodate the dominant group? Is it preferable that the speaker Kipp is referring to frame the issue in terms of race and alienate Kipp in the process, or that the speaker be accommodating, recast his rhetoric in unoffensive terms, and cultivate a potential ally in reaching a goal that Kipp and the speaker apparently share? I honestly don’t know where I stand.

I’ve thought about this tension in terms of feminism, a theory I believe in and a word I believe ultimately may take our eye off the ball.

Feminism is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes” and by Cambridge University Dictionaries as “the belief that women should be allowed the same rights, power and opportunities as men and be treated in the same way, or the set of activities intended to achieve this state.” If that’s all “feminism” is, then why the hesitation (or something stronger) among so many women my age, myself included, to use the word?

Maybe using the word feminism obscures the point. I’ve made the declaration and looked out at woeful, fearful eyes-- mostly male. As if the word instantly conjures up visions of a hostile takeover by male-bashing, man-hating, no-armpit-shaving, militant feminists. Once that vision has happened, in my experience it becomes more difficult to discuss dispassionately and productively issues such as why women occupy only 15-16% of all top level management positions and why we still earn 77 cents to every dollar a man earns... and most important, it becomes harder to constructively imagine what we can do about it.

Maybe the word has taken on meaning-- of anger, man-hating, female supremacy, and radicalism-- that doesn’t represent the attitude of many young women. “There’s no need to be angry about it,” I’ve heard friends say. But I also think it’s a concern about perception. Feminism is widely regarded as unattractive. If the common aversion to the word is grounded on the desire to use “comfortable” and “familiar” language to make the dominant group more comfortable and make women less threatening-- at the cost of sacrificing the meaning of our ideas-- then maybe that is the reason to keep the word around. Maybe the trouble I have with the word feminism is the point.

Meagan said: It is only when we actively work to acknowledge and restructure our conscious and unconscious social-psychic baggage that serves to ‘color’ of view of the motives/skill/contribution/validity/position of ‘the other’, that we truly begin to dismantle both ‘white supremacy’ AND ‘racism’ or ‘patriarchy’ AND ‘mysogyny’. I wonder what is the most effective way of attacking white supremacy and patriarchy, and I also wonder how to effectively align principles and tact.