In 2017, two notable dictionaries released their “word of the year,” their respective choices were words that had been frequently searched on their websites the year prior. Dictionary.com chose ‘feminism,’ and Merriam-Webster picked ‘complicit’. The choices of both publications had as much to do with the election of Donald Trump as America’s president, as it did the white women who worked within the administration and voted him into power. Indeed, in defending its choice, Merriam-Webster (2017), wrote “Feminism spiked following news coverage of the Women’s March on Washington, DC in January…and follow-up discussions regarding whether the march was feminist, and what kind of feminism was represented by organizers and attendees. Searches for …show more content…
An example of this comes from the Women’s March (2018), who captioned a picture of the deceased, former first lady, Barbara Bush with, “Rest in peace and power, Barbara Bush”. Many of the over 2000 responses to the tweet criticized the organization for failing to recognize the harm that Bush, both as First Lady, and matriarch of a conservative political dynasty, was active in perpetuating. What the Women’s March tweet signifies, especially from a group that organized, the largest public demonstrations in American history (Chenoweth & Pressman, 2017), is that mainstream feminism has come to regard the mere presence of a woman in power as a feminist act. Rosalind Gill (2016) notes in, “Post-feminism? New feminist visibilities in post-feminist times” that, “It…is worth noting…the proliferation of contemporary feminist campaigns that are themselves about cultural representation,” (p. 616) although she goes on to describe the abuse that these organizations receive, she does not expand upon the ways in which visibility as a primary means of consciousness-raising can often lead to the hijacking of feminist issues by corporate and celebrity activism, and as exemplified by the Women’s March, to align themselves with conservative