Feminism: “WAR” and “JOURNEY” Metaphors in Ms. and Bust Magazines

Authors

  • Shi-Fang Chen

    Faculty of Education, Language and Communication, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Kota Samarahan 94300, Malaysia

    School of Languages, Cultures and International Education, Liuzhou Institute of Technology, Liuzhou 545616, China
  • Su-Hie Ting

    Faculty of Education, Language and Communication, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Kota Samarahan 94300, Malaysia
  • Kee-Man Chuah

    Faculty of Education, Language and Communication, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Kota Samarahan 94300, Malaysia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i3.8699
Received: 9 February 2025 | Revised: 2 March 2025 | Accepted: 4 March 2025 | Published Online: 5 March 2025

Abstract

As an important medium to spread feminist ideas, magazines have attracted attention in their presentation of feminism. Metaphor analysis helps to understand the public’s cognition and attitude towards social issues, and reveals the role of metaphor in influencing thinking and decision-making. Based on conceptual metaphor theory and using corpus analysis, this paper focuses on feminism-related metaphors in the American magazines Ms. and Bust. Metaphor analysis was conducted for 1,098 articles with 1,664,733 words published from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024. Quantitative and qualitative analyses reveal that the “WAR” metaphor and “JOURNEY” metaphor were the top two metaphors related to feminism, yet they encode distinct ideological priorities. The “WAR” metaphor emphasized the plight and struggle women face in opposing gender discrimination and fighting for equal pay and other equal rights, lexicalized through terms like “campaign,” “fight,” and “attacks.” The metaphor of “JOURNEY” highlighted the continuity and development of the feminist movement in the pursuit of political participation and educational equality, lexicalized through terms like “progress,” “ways,” and “course.” This study contributes to existing literature by uncovering the metaphorical patterns of feminism in the American women’s magazines and providing novel perspectives on the understanding of American feminist movement, as well as a useful reference for related research and gender equality practice.

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How to Cite

Chen, S.-F., Ting, S.-H., & Chuah, K.-M. (2025). Feminism: “WAR” and “JOURNEY” Metaphors in Ms. and Bust Magazines. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(3), 397–411. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i3.8699

Issue

Vol. 7 , Iss. 3 (March 2025)

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Article

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Copyright © 2025 Shi-Fang Chen, Su-Hie Ting, Kee-Man Chuah

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This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.