Feminism is not equality

To begin with, the vast substance of my opponent's text does not address my points at all, in fact it seems to not even acknowledge the existence of my side of the debate, instead following a narrative of women having more rights than men. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. I have opinions on this, but they are hardly pertinent, as the premise of the debate is the definition of feminism(Feminism is not equality), not that women or men are treated better or worse than each other in modern society. There is an explanation as to why Pro's argument only lightly skirts mine at the beginning and end, and not at all in the core of it. This is a bit embarrassing for me, but here it is: http://thoughtcatalog.com... Youngastronomer's entire dissertation from "1) Women have the right to genital integrity..." to "...And maybe you do, too." is taken verbatim from this article, written by Janet Bloomfield. It is certainly not standard conduct in a debate to have one side call upon a third party to come and argue their case for them. It is a minor detail, but seeing as the vast majority of my opponents response was written by someone else, I feel that this occurrence merits notice. I have explained in the first paragraph why the aforementioned text does not refute my arguments, and the same rebuttal there applies to the points of "Women can accuse men of rape without evidence" and "Guilty until proven innocent", namely the fact that we aren't discussing the current conditions of sexual-based institutional biases. My opponent also raises the etymology of the word "feminism", positing that if you are going to adhere to the narrow dictionary definition of feminism, why not take it a step further and and use the origin of the word. He also claims that feminists " shy away from analyzing what a root word and a suffix add up to", implying that that analysis will contest with the views on feminism I have purveyed. This is not at all the case. The word feminine means "of the female sex...", "feminine, female; with feminine qualities, effeminate"{1}, and the suffix -ism means "word-forming element making nouns implying a practice, system, doctrine, etc."{2}. To summarize, the most literally meaning would be, "the practice of being feminine". Actually, when the word was coined(c. 1851){3}, this literal interpretation would have been more insulting to women, as at the time traits valued in woman were things now seen as negative characteristics, such as complacency and servility. In conclusion the etymology of the word provides no support for Pro's case of feminism meaning superiority of women. Finally, this debate is a contest of semantics. Semantics are a sub-field of semiotics, or the study of symbols. Semantics is specifically the study of words(symbols) and meanings. Words are symbols, and they connote meanings. When I say "chair", you can interpret that symbol and think of a chair. This basic principle is what I outlined in my previous syllogism, a principle that was never even contested by my opponent. Here is an example to reiterate. Currently 10% of Protestant "Christians" in America don't believe in God{4}. Let's imagine this number rose to 51%. Would we now say that Christians are people who don't believe in God? Of course not, because the meaning of someone who believes in Yah'Weh and Christ being Christian has seniority over this new "Definition". That meaning has long since been codified as what it is today. This applies to feminism as well. If Pro wanted to defeat my argument, his task would be to demonstrate why such unimpugnable authorities, such as Merriam Webster and Encyclopedia Britannica, are erroneous in their definition of feminism, a feat which he never even attempted. Pro has blundered fatally in using the wrong word to represent what he was trying to argue against. Perhaps a more appropriate premise for my opponent would have been, "Third-Wave Feminism is not equality". {1}http://www.etymonline.com... {2}http://www.etymonline.com... {3}http://www.etymonline.com... {4}http://www.simpletoremember.com...