CDA C.Denisse Borgono

Escuela de Educación
Pedagogía en Inglés para Enseñanza Básica y Media

Análisis del Discurso Aplicado del Inglés
Prof. Anna Ivanova
The Perception of Feminism in Modern Society
Article: An opinion article from a high school journalism
Introduction
Feminism has been a controversial movement since first heard in the 19 th century
when women were demanding to have legal rights such as the right to vote (Rampton, M.,
2008). Since this first feminist wave (Rampton, M., 2008), feminism has been on the spot
and has been changing not only on their ideologies but how the world sees people who
identify as feminists.
Feminism, by definition, means ‘’belief in and advocacy of the political, economic,

and social equality of the sexes expressed especially through organized activity on behalf of
women's rights and interests’’ (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). Despite this definition, there is a
part of the population of men and women who feel unrepresented by the feminist
movement and even expressed, on research, that they associated the term feminism with
‘’man-hating’’ (Scharff, C., 2019).
This analysis was made taking into a count an opinion column from a high school
newspaper which states that feminism has become too extreme in terms of behavior
(Simakova, L., 2020). Through the analysis, the negative connotation of the term
‘’feminism’’ can be evidenced by the different word choices that the writer of the article
and people made. Another word that has been analyzed is ‘’women’’ which has a neutral
and even positive connotation.
In the next pages, there is the methodology that has been use to do the analysis and
the conclusions obtained will be properly review and explained.
Prof. Anna Ivanova
Methodology
For this analysis research, an article about how feminism has become too extreme,
which was written by Lora Simakova for an online newspaper of Carlmont High School
(Simakova, L., 2020) has been carefully read and analyzed (see appendix A to read the
article). This piece of article shows the writer’s vision on how feminism is seen in modern
society and how it is affecting people, especially men. In this paper we have decided to
analyze the different implications on the word ‘’Feminism’’ and ‘’Women’’.
To develop this research, the Van Dijk (1993) Principles of Critical Discourse
Analysis (CDA) were used, which had been helpful to understand in a better way the aim of
the analyzed text because one the targets of CDA is to empathize with minority groups, or
groups in need. CDA is a great tool to analyze this kind of text since it refers to Feminists
who tends to be a minority group who fights and protest in order to have equal rights.
Actually, the feminist movement has social power in society even if it’s not followed by a
great amount of people. But as it is stated in Van Dijk (1993), ‘’ (…) power is mostly
cognitive, and enacted by persuasion, dissimulation or manipulation, among other strategic
ways to change the mind of others in one’s own interests’’, and as read in the text to
analyze, feminism has found ways to be heard and also to change the different mind-sets of
people through history. And not only that but spread the idea that women should be in
dominance (Simakova, L., 2020), or that ‘’the future is female’’ (Ezeji-Okoye, E., 2017)
which in some way leave behind the ideology of feminism that, as is wrote in the
introduction, means the belief in and advocacy of the political, economic, and social
equality of the sexes (Merriam-Webster, n.d).
For better understanding of this text, there has been a process of reading and deep
analyze of the content in the opinion article which helped to be more aware of the context
and the structures used through the whole piece of article.
In order to analyze the words used in the text, a software called AntConc
contributed to know which words were the ones that have more repetitions through the text
and which collocations where the ones chosen by the writer Lora Simakova. To use this
software, we had to adapt the text to a txt. file, and then upload it to the AntConc software
Prof. Anna Ivanova
where the most used words-and how often they were used-, and also their collocations were
analyzed. After this, the most frequent words shown in the software and that we are going
to analyze are ‘’Feminism’’ and ‘’Women’’
Having already defined the words to analyze, we will review the quantitative results
obtained during the analysis and try to understand why those words were chosen for this
opinion text.
Results and Discussion
After reading and analyzing the text and the images around it in depth, we can
notice that one of the images do not agree with what the text wants to expose which is that
feminism has become too extreme in modern society because in the image we can only
appreciate women in some kind of protest showing different phrases that represent their
beliefs and rights. Where is the ‘’extreme’’ behavior of feminists in this picture? We can go
deeper and infer that when the writer refers to ‘’extreme’’ when talking about feminism,
she means that now it is not about equal rights but more of a female dominance where
women want to be recognized as better than men (Simakova, L., 2020)
To start, the AntConc showed that the text contains 307 word-types and 709 word-
tokens. Now, we have as a result that the word ‘’Feminism’’ was mentioned 14 times
during the whole text and ‘’Women’’ appeared on the text 9 times as you could see forward
on the appendix (B).
Figure 1. Concordance lines with the noun ‘’feminism’’.

Prof. Anna Ivanova
The word ‘’feminism’’, as we can see in the figure 1, goes around with words
like ‘’confused’’, ‘’arose’’ and ‘’became’’ and also the most usual words preceding
‘’feminism’’ are the ones such as ‘’modern’’ or ‘’wave’’. With these results, we can relate
that the word feminism is still something that has not been clearly explained to society and
might be confused with beliefs and ideologies that do not correspond to what really
feminism is which might be one of the reasons why just a few of women and men call
themselves feminists. The word feminism is also linked to ‘’arose’’ and it is because the
feminism movement has come to modern society in specific moments. With this we can say
that feminism has shown leadership not on a daily basis but on specific moments when it is
needed to make demands or to ask for the respect of women legal rights.
Then, we have the word ‘’women’’ which, as it is shown in figure 2, is likely to

go with the word ‘’rights’’, ‘’allowed’’, and ‘’dominance’’ remarking that in some way
women are feminist to defend their rights but that this also has led to a sense of
empowerment that now is changing the purpose and ideology of what feminism is and
evolving to a female dominance over the male. So, when we relate ‘’women’’ to
‘’dominance’’ it can be noticed that there is a misunderstanding of what women and
specially feminists want to achieve. ‘’Dominance’’ is portrayed as a negative word since
means that something has more power over another thing, as an example the stereotype that
men are wiser than women, or that they can do hard work and women cannot. The fact is
that when the term ‘’dominance’’ is related to ‘’women’’ does not mean that women are
supposed to be the ones in power, or in charge. However, means that women should be able
to have protagonist roles in society, they should be able to be part of the dominant groups
or just to be able to be heard and recognized as someone who is as valuable as men are.
Prof. Anna Ivanova
Figure 2. Concordance lines with the noun ‘’women’’.
Conclusion
The aim of this discourse analysis research was made to understand better the
concept of ‘’feminism’’ and how people understand this movement. The objective was
based on the premise that feminism has become too extreme in modern society (Simakova,
L., 2020) which has made that only few people consider themselves as feminists.
In order to examine in a proper way this text a linguistic tool called AntConc
was used which gave the quantitative results on the words used for this opinion text. Also,
the principles of Critical Discourse Analysis (Van Dijk, 1993) were useful in order to fulfill
the main objective.
On this research, we could see that even when feminism tries to portray a
positive image and ideology stating that they look for the equality of the sexes in all senses,
people tend to not feel part of it and instead they see feminism as a movement that look for
power over the men and even that is a movement that makes women less feminine and
more manly like, as reviewed in Simakova’s text.
Finally, we can conclude that there is a negative connotation around the

‘feminism’ term since people haven’t been informed properly on this matter and that they
tend to link words such as ‘feminism’ and ‘women’ in context where ‘dominance’ is the
Prof. Anna Ivanova
most used for them because they think that feminism wants to erase manhood which in the
end is nothing like that since as read in The Future is Female (Ezeki-Okoye, E., 2017)
article, feminism does not look for women to be the center of the society or the ones in
power but for a society where women and men have the same equal rights, and can be both
heard with the same respect as men have nowadays.
References
- Ezeji-Okoye, E.T., (2017, March 10). The Future is Female. Retrieved from
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/3/10/elijah-ezeji-okoye-the-future-is-
female/
- Merriam-webster (n.d). Definition of Feminism. Retrieved from
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feminism#h1
- Rampton, M. (2008). Four Waves of Feminism. Retrieved from
https://www.pacificu.edu/magazine/four-waves-feminism
- Scharff, C. (2019, February 19). Why so Many Young Women Don’t Call
Themselves Feminist. Retrieved from
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47006912
- Simakova, L. (2020, January 16) Opinion: Feminism has become too extreme.
Retrieved from
Prof. Anna Ivanova
https://scotscoop.com/opinion-feminism-needs-to-pipe-down/#
- Van Dijk, T.A. (1993). Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis. Retrieved from
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0957926593004002006
Prof. Anna Ivanova
Appendix A
https://scotscoop.com/opinion-feminism-needs-to-pipe-down/#
Opinion: Feminism has become too extreme
The modern feminist movement has too large of a role in society
According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, the official of feminism is the advocacy of

women’s rights based on the equality of the sexes. Although this definition states that
advocates should work towards equality for both men and women, feminism, in today’s
society, has come to mean asserting women’s rights over men’s.
How did we get here?
According to the first wave of the feminist movement started in the late 1800s into the early
1900s. This wave primarily focused on women’s legal rights, especially the right to vote.
This stage of the movement was often intertwined with pressing social issues of the time,
such as temperance and abolition.
The second wave of feminism arose in the 1960s. Feminism, at this time, was about
asserting equal rights between the sexes, especially in the expression of sexuality and social
roles. This movement was part of the larger campaign in politics towards the left, as seen in
the Black Power and the antiwar movements. However, as the decades progressed,
feminism became more theoretical, focusing on the broader issues with heteronormativity,
patriarchy, and capitalism.
The third wave arose in the 1990s. The focus of this wave was on redefining womanhood,
through the acceptance of feminine beauty for itself, rather than as standards imposed by
the patriarchy.
This final wave of feminism arose in the 2010s. This era has relied especially on news and
social media to catalyze the movement and spread awareness.
Prof. Anna Ivanova
According to the modern feminism is often confused with the influential movements in the
1960s. Rather than keeping the biased term of “feminism,” the important campaign could
be renamed to something more neutral.
“The biggest issue in the way we see modern feminism is that we often conflate it with the
feminist movement from the ‘60s. The term is a little outdated and often associated with
bra-burning and man-hate,” Tasnim Ahmed wrote.
The terms ‘bra-burning’ and ‘man-hating’ describe the movement exactly in that many
feminists tend to take their protesting and campaigning to radical extremes.
Modern feminism, and the international movements that follow, spread ideas of women in
dominance, rather than equality amongst all sex. This is a broad issue because it separates
society as a whole.
Nowadays, there is no need for vocal calls against female oppression. Women are now
allowed to vote, gain an education, have a stable job, vote in society, enlist in the army, file
for divorce, and much more. They have equal rights.
According to the the political wing that most commonly endorses female empowerment is
the Left. It’s not unusual for this wing of politics to focus on the encouragement and the
related emotional aspect of a movement, such as feminism.
“In addition to being scientifically impossible, an all-female future is neither wise nor
wanted. Leftists won’t readily admit that both women and men possess strengths and
weaknesses. Each side complements the other,” Kimberly Ross wrote.
Although it is important to spread awareness of feminine issues, other problems in the
world require more immediate attention.
The modern movement brings not much more than the increasing separation of men and
women.
Another growing concept is ‘our future is female.’ This commonly-used phrase once again
causes more separation within society because it portrays the idea of women being superior
to men.
Kirsten Gillibrand’s in 2018 regarding the future being female received a significant
amount of backlash. Stating that the future is female only further separates those of the
other sex, which creates an unproductive society.
Prof. Anna Ivanova
Marco Rubio’s to our future being female gives a much more positive outlook on society.
His comment focuses on the idea that one’s race, religion, and gender don’t matter. We are
all part of one society, and we are known as Americans.
Feminism and other related movements spread many ideas, few of which are truly essential
to advancing society. The emotional and encouraging aspect of the movement brings little
benefit to the real world.
Modern feminism is more of a dividing factor rather than a uniting force. Bringing attention
to much larger issues in society is far more beneficial.
Appendix B
Prof. Anna Ivanova
Prof. Anna Ivanova
Prof. Anna Ivanova
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Prof. Anna Ivanova
Prof. Anna Ivanova
Prof. Anna Ivanova
Prof. Anna Ivanova
Prof. Anna Ivanova

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Escuela de Educación

Pedagogía en Inglés para Enseñanza Básica y Media

The Perception of Feminism in Modern Society

Article: An opinion article from a high school journalism

Feminism, by definition, means ‘’belief in and advocacy of the political, economic,

Results and Discussion

Figure 1. Concordance lines with the noun ‘’feminism’’.

Then, we have the word ‘’women’’ which, as it is shown in figure 2, is likely to

Figure 2. Concordance lines with the noun ‘’women’’.

Finally, we can conclude that there is a negative connotation around the

- Merriam-webster (n.d). Definition of Feminism. Retrieved from

- Rampton, M. (2008). Four Waves of Feminism. Retrieved from

Opinion: Feminism has become too extreme

The modern feminist movement has too large of a role in society

According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, the official of feminism is the advocacy of

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