TIME apologized for including “feminist” on its facetious poll of words to be banished from the empire.
Nancy Gibbs, the magazine’s managing editor, penned an apology that is included as an editor’s note above the article:
Time apologizes for the execution of this poll; the word ‘feminist’ should not have been included in a list of words to ban. While we meant to invite debate about some ways the word was used this year, that nuance was lost, and we regret that its inclusion has become a distraction from the important debate over equality and justice.
Why did that not occur to them as soon as someone suggested the word? It’s not a subtle or nuanced thought, is it.
In the Los Angeles Times, blogger Susan Rohwer opined it was “deeply troubling a news organization like Time would suggest banning a word that means something as basic and seemingly uncontroversial as ‘all humans deserve the same rights regardless of their gender.’ Apparently, we need yet another reminder of why anti-feminist rhetoric like this needs to end.”
The New York Review of Books, Planned Parenthood and others all weighed in on social media, generally panning the magazine’s decision to include the word on its banishment poll.
And TIME stared open-mouthed, and blinked, and moved its lips, and finally figured out that shitting on the idea of equal rights for all of humanity instead of just the male half of it might not be such a genius plan. Well done.