feminist

/ˈfɛmənəst/

/ˈfɛmɪnɪst/

Other forms: feminists

A feminist is someone who supports equal rights for women. If your brother objects strongly to women being paid less than men for doing the same job, he's probably a feminist.

If you believe that women should have the same political, social, and economic rights as men, you are a feminist. It has absolutely nothing to do with putting down men or boys in order to elevate the status of women. The word feminist comes from feminism, which originally meant simply "being feminine," or "being a woman," but gained the meaning "advocacy of women's rights" in the late 1800s.

Definitions of feminist

1. noun

   a supporter of feminism
   synonyms: libber, women's liberationist, women's rightist

   examples:

   Simone de Beauvoir

   French feminist and existentialist and novelist (1908-1986)

   Betty Naomi Goldstein Friedan

   United States feminist who founded a national organization for women (born in 1921)

   Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman

   United States feminist (1860-1935)

   Lucretia Coffin Mott

   United States feminist and suffragist (1793-1880)

   Alice Paul

   United States feminist (1885-1977)

   Elizabeth Cady Stanton

   United States suffragist and feminist; called for reform of the practices that perpetuated sexual inequality (1815-1902)

   Gloria Steinem

   United States feminist (born in 1934)

   Lucy Stone

   United States feminist and suffragist (1818-1893)

   Sojourner Truth

   United States abolitionist and feminist who was freed from slavery and became a leading advocate of the abolition of slavery and for the rights of women (1797-1883)

   Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

   English writer and early feminist who denied male supremacy and advocated equal education for women; mother of Mary Shelley (1759-1797)

   Frances Wright

   United States early feminist (born in Scotland) (1795-1852)

   types:

   suffragette

   a woman advocate of women's right to vote (especially a militant advocate in the United Kingdom at the beginning of the 20th century)

   type of:

   crusader, meliorist, reformer, reformist, social reformer

   a person or group who pushes to improve an institution or system by changing it
2. adjective

   of or relating to or advocating equal rights for women
   “feminist critique”