Holland’s most prominent feminist monthly magazine Opzij (which means ‘out of the way’ in Dutch) has just announced that they will now be writing from a ‘feminine’ rather than a ‘feminist’ angel in order to be more ‘positive and inspiring’, which has got to be about the most depressing thing we’ve ever heard.
The magazine has been dealing with a decline in sales and is rebranding itself under the helm of new publishers Veen Media and a new editor-in-chief Irene de Bel. Irene just appeared on a national daily talk show and waxed lyrical on the publication’s new direction:
‘I am repeatedly told that Opzij is harping on about feminism too much. We need to get rid of that [image] and be positive and inspiring.’
Why a magazine would feel the need to dump their feminist credentials in order to feel more positive and inspiring is beyond us and Irene also has some pretty strange views about the position of women in modern society. She explained: ‘The time of pointing fingers is over. Women have to seize the opportunities at hand. This fits with an Opzij writing from a feminine, and not by definition feminist, angle.’
READ MORE: An Open Letter To The Women Who Don't Need Feminism
The decision to give Opzij a makeover away from feminism is especially depressing considering the magazine has a pretty kick-ass backstory when it comes to women’s rights. It was founded in 1972 during the Netherland’s second-wave feminism movement and, ever since, it’s been at the forefront of the emancipation of women. The fact that they’re distancing themselves from that amazing heritage in order to affect sales is a bleak indication of how the word ‘feminism’ has become anathema for some people. In what started with Beyoncé’s insistence that ‘feminism’ needed a sassy new rebranding to a word like ‘bootylicious’ (vom) and has ended with the proliferation of the ‘Women Against Feminism’ Facebook page one thing’s clear – for a lot of people ‘feminism’ has now become a dirty word.
We’re sorry, but enough really is enough. Let’s not forget that the word ‘feminism’ doesn’t mean anything other than ‘everyone having equal rights to each other’ – if there’s something unpalatable or unbankable about that concept then, trust us, we’re all in big trouble here. Whilst we’re talking about it, the word ‘feminine’ seems like a much more dangerous construct, because the embodies a whole bunch of gender stereotypes about women – like ‘softness’, ‘vulnerability’ and ‘physical weakness’– which actually act to hold women back rather than push them forward. Just a thought, but rather than quibbling over the word, wouldn’t it be a better idea to educate those people who wrongly assume that feminism is about pushing forward the rights of women over and above men? The fear of a word which only exists to make the world a better place for everyone is getting really old now, folks.
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophiecullinane
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.