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Corey Little
Dessaro
English 111

Causal Essay

In the early 1990s a new wave of feminism began to spread in America dubbed
fourth wave feminism. The movement focuses on sexual identity, sexual orientation, the
presentation of women in media, violence against women, the wage gap between the sexes, slutshaming, the patriarchy, body positivity, and an abundance of other topics; however, because of
the first three waves of feminism and how radical they could be, people today have trouble
calling themselves feminist and it has affected their views of feminism. There is no shortage of
radical feminist in this fourth wave who are making things difficult they cause controversies,
attack people, and this continues the stigma that all feminist are radical even though these radical
feminist are a vocal minority. Despite some people being afraid to call themselves feminist there
are women who dont back down from the title like Emma Watson, Malala Yousafzai, and even
senator Bernie Sanders who have all public said they are feminist, and fight for what feminism
stands for equality between the sexes.
Today despite people agreeing with the views of feminism they dont want to be called
feminist because a stigma has developed that all feminist are radicals. On a website called
Tumblr you can find many blogs that only spur the stigma that all Feminist are men haters who
are not for equality between the sexes, but the opposite a world where women are above men. A
term has developed for these kinds of feminist known as Feminazis used by both supporters and

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non-supporters alike to describe the radical feminist. In a 2014 controversy known as
GamerGate an Independent game developer by the name of Zoe Quinn had a number of affairs
with male reporters in the games industry including a head writer of the online gaming website
Kotaku. This controversy which was based mainly on twitter became and was not only about the
integrity of the games journalism but also evolved into a discussion about misogyny and sexism
in video games in general like putting women in skimpy outfits for no good reason as was the
case in a recent game: Metal Gear Solid 5 The Phantom Pain or women always being the
damsel in distress like in almost every Mario game since its release. This lead to cries of outrage
about censorship and creative freedoms and also helped cement another term for radicals, Social
Justice Warriors. In all honesty there was a lot of confusion on what GamerGate was about
because both of the topics above shared the spotlight so closely. It ultimately ended by fading out
of relevance with nothing being accomplished. One more example of how radical Feminist are
causing people to dissociate from the term feminism is a more recent controversy where Social
Justice Warriors attacked an artist for drawing characters from the popular cartoon Steven
Universe with the wrong body types, the attacked this artist so much the artist attempted suicide,
they lived but this really caused major backlash for these Social Justice Warriors. Despite all this
there are still people, important people who call themselves Feminist.
Despite the radicals and the bad light feminism is sometimes shined in there are people,
important people, who dont shy away from the title of Feminist and are helping to advance the
true wants of the feminist movement. One of the most notable people who call themselves a
Feminist is Emma Wattson who delivered a speech to the U.N about the importance of womens
rights and her struggles with sexism. This speech was so powerful it helped another important
figure in the fourth wave of feminism to realize she should be calling herself a feminist Malala

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Yousafzai. Who was brought into the spotlight after being shot in the head by the Taliban for
attending school, and when she survived she delivered a speech, wrote a book, and fought for
womens rights in Pakistan which all attributed to her winning an Nobel Peace Prize. There are
even important men who are unafraid to call themselves feminist, one of these men is Bernie
Sanders. Bernie Sanders is a candidate in the democratic primaries and has said openly stated
that he is a feminist in a Washington Post interview. So its not just women who arent shying
away from the title. It shows how far the movement has come despite all the people that want to
stop it or drag the name through the mud, especially since just a few years ago a man wouldnt
dare call themselves a feminist in fear of what it could do to them social or career wise
depending on their career.
So feminism has been cast in a bad light by the people who disagree with it or by the
radicals but it has people who show feminisms good side and who arent afraid to call
themselves feminism.