The 4 differences between Feminazi and Feminista

The term "feminazi" is one of the most controversial words among those currently used. It is because of its strong emotional content, referring to Nazism, and also being linked to a topic that greatly polarizes public opinion: feminism.

And it is that at present it is very common to find people who criticize this political movement and philosophical current centered on women, showing that "feminism" and "feminazism" are synonyms. As we will see, there are many reasons to distinguish between the two concepts.

Throughout this article we will see What are the differences between "feminazi" and "feminist", and why it is a mistake to confuse the two words with each other.

• Related article: "Types of feminism and its different currents of thought"

The 4 differences between “feminazi” and “feminist”

This is a summary of the differences that we can find between the feminist and the feminazi, and that will give you reasons not to use them interchangeably.

1. One is worked philosophically, the other is not.

The first thing to point out about the differences that exist between the feminist and the "feminazi" is that, while the first concept has been worked on for decades by a large number of female philosophers (and, to a lesser extent, male philosophers), there is not much theoretical specificity 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 that of difference feminism, seeks to delve into the meaning of being a woman beyond the masculine vision of this affair.

The word “feminazi, on the other hand, was created in the 1990s by the American radio host and commentator Rush Limbaugh, known for his sympathy for conservative ideology, and therefore did not go so far as to describe with too many nuances what something called something called "feminazism".

Thus, there is a clear asymmetry between the phenomenon of feminism, which for decades has produced very different ways of approaching the issue of discrimination against women (sometimes complementary, sometimes directly confronting each other and the reason for battles within the feminism itself), and the concept of the feminazi, which is totally devoid of nuances and which no one has come 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 made it the name of their political and intellectual movement. For this reason, 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 a 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 specify, "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 concrete social phenomenon, since to begin with it is not related to a main idea that serves to indicate where it begins and where ends (even if it is approximately, not exactly) the set of people who participate in the "feminazism". We have the reason for this in the two previous sections: it has not been theoretically developed and is simply born as a pejorative label.

• You may be interested in: "What is Political Psychology?"

4. Ferminism is a social movement; feminazism, no

This is possibly the main difference between “feminist” and “feminazi”. People who consider themselves feminists can be grouped into a set that can be specifically analyzed by the sociology, because they share certain themes, certain symbols and common concerns that are related to the situation of the women.

This does not occur 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 some political claims similar to those of Nazism and that shares spaces or claims with the feminism.

Obviously, we can always blur the meaning of Nazism to make it correspond to certain authoritarian attitudes or even ultra-rightists who can be detected in people who call themselves feminists and who have a certain internal organization and capacity to mobilize people.

However, to do this one must leave behind the most characteristic features of the 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 (who lives within one's own country), corporatism (with unions verticals 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 the society.

Bibliographic references:

• Krolokke, Charlotte; Anne Scott Sorensen (2005). "Three Waves of Feminism: From Suffragettes to Grrls." Gender Communication Theories and Analyses: From Silence to Performance. Sage. p. 24.
• Phillips, Melanie (2004). The Ascent of Woman: A History of the Suffragette Movement and the Ideas Behind it. London: Abacus. pp. 1 - 370.
• Seelye, Katherine Q. (1994). "Republicans Get a Pep Talk From Rush Limbaugh." The New York Times.