The Rise of Microfeminism: Tiny Acts, Big Change

The idea, called "micro feminism," spread as more women liked and shared a TikTok video about it. Microfeminism is the movement of doing small, deliberate things to support women in places where men are dominant. It is growing in popularity. It's about the little things—small changes in behavior that might not seem important at first but have a significant impact on upsetting deeply held gender norms.

Ashley Chaney's popular TikTok video that made the term more well-known is a great example. When Chaney emails, if she copies a female assistant along with a male CEO, the female assistant's email address comes first. She said, "That's my favorite kind of microfeminism," and she asked others to share theirs.

A considerable number of women responded by sharing their small acts of feminism. A preschool worker said that she calls dads first in case of problems to challenge the idea that moms are the only ones who can care for kids. On the other hand, a real estate agent always puts wives' names first in contracts, which often makes husbands question their choices.

A lot of people agree with the idea, but some people don't like it. Chaney was harassed a lot online; people called her a misandrist and said terrible things about how she looked. The meanness was so bad that she had to stop being online for a while. She said, "To be honest, it scared me so much."

Experts say that these small acts can change the way people think about gender bias in everyday life. Microfeminism encourages women to "wink and nod" at each other, which strengthens their presence and importance in places where men have traditionally been dominant.

As Chaney says, these actions often come from being angry about the unfair things that happen every day. Some things happen to me every day that make me crazy. I'm aware that these small actions are meant to help the people around me. "I wonder if they see."

Microfeminist actions could cause a significant change in culture if more people do them. This shows that even small acts of resistance can question more significant systems of inequality.

As of writing, micro feminism has more than a total of 15 million views and posts on Tiktok.