BY MADDY MORIARTY
Mariemont High School has a secret.
Okay, that totally sounds like the beginning of a Goosebumps episode. But really, something strange is happening within the culture of the student body surrounding the word “feminism.”
Before attempting to fully understand the phenomena, it’s vital we travel back to a time when Alex from Target and Yik Yak were all the rage: 2014.
In fall of 2014, a Twitter account began to gain momentum across the country, and especially within the Mariemont community. Remember this guy?
The Meninist account was created for the purpose of “satirizing” feminism. As shown in the tweet above, that purpose failed. The tweets were sexist and hateful towards females, regardless of their stance on feminism.
Nevertheless, “Meninism” had its heyday at Mariemont for the entire length of the 2014-2015 school year.
“The Meninist account made it okay to joke about serious issues against women and spread the stereotype of a ‘radical feminist’ on social media, which was a huge bummer because it painted such a positive social movement with complete falsehood,” says Courtney Dunning, who was a sophomore during the popularity of the account.
Now in 2016, “Meninism” has since faded away, but the impact still lingers in the culture surrounding the word “feminism.”
The question “Would you consider yourself a feminist?” was posed to a sample of 20 students, evenly male and female and across every grade level.
The results show a majority of students identifying as a feminist (yes, really). But here’s the kicker:
In addition to these statistics, 100% of the students interviewed were able to produce a correct definition of feminism.
Of the students who did not identify as a feminist, 100% of them got most or all of their information about feminism from social media.
This data changes the mystery from why don’t students consider themselves feminists? to why do students fear judgement from a mostly feminist student body?
AP Psychology teacher, Amy Leatherwood, believes that this imbalance has a lot to do with the need to “fit in.”
“The pressure to fit into such a small community is huge. Privately, people might hold certain opinions, but publicly it’s easier to excuse yourself from engaging in something that’s challenging out of fear of judgement, ” says Leatherwood.
Just as Leatherwood emphasizes, the small community of Mariemont does in fact have an impact on a student’s tendency to make public stances on controversial issues.
In an academic article, “The Anthropology of Belonging: The Need for Social Inclusion,” Dr. Gerda Wever-Rabehl explains, “Evolution has instilled in us a powerful desire to be a part of a group of people we can know and whom can know us.”
Given Mariemont’s history with anti-feminism movements, will we ever be able to openly discuss such a progressive issue? The answer to that question will determine the answer to another: can Mariemont students move beyond the concern to “fit in” to such a homogenous community?