The word “feminazi” is a false construction, a strawfeminist, created to scare people away from the juicy crops of equality, equity and the end of female subjugation.
(See the “strawman” entry in the Logical Fallacies section at the Critical Thinking Website.)
stealthbadger (Stealth Badger): A dudely introduction to feminism (utterly debunks the arguments made to support the “feminazi” invention by Ted Hazlett and popularisation by slime-shill Rush Limbaugh)
For further contrast with the actual feminism movement, examine 12 Warning Signs of Fascism here.
More strawfeminists and myths about feminism:
Amanda Marcotte (Pandagon): Feminist Myths 101
Mad Melancholic Feminista: Feminism 101 – Myths & Facts
Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog 
Pssst, the term wasn’t actually coined by Rush, but popularized by him. The person who coined it was Tom Hazlett.
I know this because I got a Nitpick troll on a post that linked to my “choice feminism” post where I originally stated that Rush was the coiner. Which, of course, was completely tangential to my point, but you know how the Nitpickers are 🙂
Thanks tekanji, good catch. I’ll correct that.
I would like to use this thread to say a few words about the term “feminazi” itself and what I, as a European, hear in it.
In principle, you cannot speak about WWII in a dismissive way in Europe. The atrocities of history need yet to be studied and may not ever be understood by us (which, on some level, may be taken as a sign that we cannot embrace human-hating logic; hopefully). WWII is not a “story,” not something that has passed into oblivion. Many survivors live to this day and even when the last of them will have died, the testimony will stay. What happened will never be erased.
The ignorance which led to the coinage of the term “feminazi” is dangerous and terrifying.
Rush Limbaugh and his followers cannot be excused by being American — if they want to use the word, they should prove they know its weight.
Anyone even trying to use this term should be made to take a test on WWII, to get at least a taste of what they are engaging with through that term.
If you use the term, you are labeling yourself as an idiot, disrespectful not only towards women, but also towards human history. The term doesn’t say anything about the group you are attacking, only about you and your lack of basic insight, lack of a basic level of intelligence that would tell you how missed, wrong, and dismissive of suffering you are.
The source of the term is undisturbed and dangerous ignorance. The word not only tries to couple two mutually exclusive ideas but offends in every possible direction.
It is like the Gombrowiczian idea of “rape through the ears.” It tries to sell the impossible idea that a group struggling for their rights could be similar to enemies of humanity.
I am arguing here in favor of self-censorship, in favor of the will to make ourselves less stupid through our own effort. By not using the term, by not even trying to find a “more positive” side to it (it doesn’t exist), we are showing respect for a history that is still part of our lives. It is, no distance can separate us from that, only the distance of absolute ignorance.
Can anyone help?
Does anyone here have a copy of the 1978 edition of “Gyn/ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism” by Mary Daly? If so, I’d love to get your help in checking up on a fact.
I’ve been arguing with an anti-feminist acquaintance regarding a figure that was allegedly used by Mary Daly in “Gyn/Ecology”. Daly allegedly claimed that 9 million accused witches were burned at the stake (or otherwise executed) during the period known as the Burning Times. (Research since the seventies puts the figure at around 60,000 to 100,000.)
However, in my own copy of ‘Gyn-Ecology’ (1990), Daly does not use this 9 million figure in the text at all. Rather, she uses a footnote to cite about 3 historical sources giving a range of figures – from as low as 30,000 to as high as 9 million.
However, Wikipedia and several other online essays and anti-feminist blog posters (no doubt using the Wiki reference) continue to attribute the 9 million figure to Daly. I’ve also seen this figure used by anti-feminist bloggers to discredit Daly and, by association, all feminist research.
I would like to set the Wikipedia reference – and my annoying acquaintance – straight. The trouble is that my copy of the book is the 1990 edition. As I can’t get hold of the 1978 edition, I have no way of knowing whether she did originally cite the figure of 9 million.
The link to “12 Warning Signs of Fascism” is now a 404.