'Feminism' is Merriam-Webster dictionary's word of the year, but it's nothing to be happy about

What does feminism really mean? Photo Courtesy: Instagram

'Feminism.' A word that has divided the world. Some call it a movement that will help women get equal rights, whereas some think it is nothing but gender terrorism wrapped up in fancy mumbo-jumbo. So, basically everyone is interested to know what it exactly means, and that has made it Merriam-Webster dictionary's word of the year.

According to a report published in BBC, Merriam-Webster said interest in the term was driven by women's marches, new TV shows and films on women's issues and the string of news stories on sexual assault and harassment claims. The number of people searching for the word was up 70% on 2016, it said. The dictionary defines feminism as the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes.

'Feminism.' A word that has divided the world. Photo Courtesy: Twitter

"No one word can ever encapsulate all the news, events, or stories of a given year, particularly a year with so much news and so many stories. But when a single word is looked up with great volume, it also stands out as one associated with several different important stories. We can learn something about ourselves through the prism of vocabulary," says Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster's editor at large, in an interview to the Washington Post.

The interest around the word spiked when thousands of women filled the streets of several cities in the United States of America. The protest was termed as Women's March and it expressed the displeasure over Donald Trump's election as the President of USA.

Thousands of women took to streets to protest against election of Donald Trump. Photo Courtesy: Twitter

Next, the global hashtag MeToo grabbed eyeballs as well. Thanks to the American actress and producer Alyssa Milano, #MeToo became a trend, which spread like fire in the forest on social media. It all began when Milano posted a screenshot of a friend's suggestion on her Twitter handle in the wake of several high-profile Hollywood actresses speaking openly against Hollywood producer (and letch) Harvey Weinstein's and his deeds of sexual assault. The post suggested that if women wrote 'Me Too' as their status, people might get a sense of the magnitude of the problem.

If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet. pic.twitter.com/k2oeCiUf9n

— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) October 15, 2017

And that led to thousands of women around the world sharing harrowing experiences of sexual assault on social media sites. This again brought the entire discussion on feminism to the forefront.

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, Time magazine named the Silence Breakers-- women and men who had spoken out against sexual abuse - as its 'Person of the Year'. Its cover featured five women - two of them celebrities - who had reported sexual misconduct, but said many more people were part of the movement behind the cover picture, reports FoxNews.

#MeToo creator Tarana Burke on the power of the movement #TIMEPOY pic.twitter.com/23YIg8Kd25

— TIME (@TIME) December 7, 2017

Thus, various events that happened over the year managed to draw attention to the word feminism, which ultimately made it the Merriam-Webster's word of the year. Well, here's hoping people really did learn something from it.