Despite the rise of feminism and the demand for equality as well as high profile movements such as #freeperiods, the UK is among the lowest 3 (of 28) EU states for gender equality.

This is perfectly represented by the continued us of blended terms such as ‘mumtrepeneur’ and  ‘mansplaining’- yes ‘manspreading’ is both inconvenient and a disgusting display, but the gender specification involved in shaming only men that spread their legs to account for their apparently huge and uncomfortable testicles is toxic. It is the exact same argument that in 2019, it cannot be justified to marginalize a woman that is both an entrepreneur and happens to be a mother into being professionally referred to as a ‘mumtrepreneur’. 

How are women supposed to strive in the workplace if from when they were born they’ve been taught that they had a private, sexualised and shameful ‘thing’ between their legs that means they should always be covered as to not arouse their male peers, teachers and later-in-life: colleagues? Girls are taught that they will forever be sexualized in a way that boys never will be because they just have a silly ‘willy’ in-between their legs. 

However, whilst many blended terms describe an actual inconsiderate act, this  does not mean that we should condone using gender-specific blended terms that degrade each half of society in their usage. Many feminists feel inherently sorry for marginalized women, but turn a blind eye to those members of the feminist movement who celebrate degrading men into their separate gender; full of their ‘disgusting’ mannerisms. Surely any self-proclaimed feminist should understand that the feminist, MeToo and free period movements weren’t started to sideline men in women’s long-awaited ‘limelight moment’; their ‘time to shine’ after centuries of oppression. NO. Feminism is about equality, therefore treating men and women in the same way, being kind and understanding of each others disadvantages as well as downfalls. 

Saying that, perfect harmony: men and women living happily ever after along side each other is a long way away. We NEED to get rid of marked terms with negative connotations like the forever degraded lady-doctors, lady-cleaners or lady-bosses of the workplace. We got ourselves into this mess in the first place because women simply weren’t allowed to be as societally superior as men God-forbid they were educated, or worse, did something of any significance. All titles like ‘Dr’, ‘Lord’ and ‘CEO’ were invented to title men, whilst lower-ranking societal titles like ‘Lady’, ‘Nurse’ and ‘Secretary’ were invented to represent ‘less intelligent’ and therefore lower ranking women. 

We should be striving as a whole society to refer to each other equally so that no man feels degraded by an ‘angry feminazi’ and no woman feels patronized or sexualized by a ‘closed-minded man’, in order for actual social equality to finally fall into place.