Historically, labels for women often, and what feels like inevitably, become derogatory. So it probably shouldn’t surprise any of us that the term ‘influencer’, which (with rare exceptions) is exclusively applied to women, is well on its way from being a basic designator, to being an insult.
‘Mistress’ used to be the female version of ‘Master’. Now we only use it to refer to a married man’s girlfriend on the side. ‘Madame’ was the respectful equivalent of Sir. Now it means a women who runs a prostitution ring. Even ‘Princess’ and ‘Queen’—they started as terms of power, yet get twisted into terms implying entitlement. ‘Spinster’ referred to a woman who worked spinning fibers into thread. Now it’s a generic term for an older, unmarried woman, and laden with negative connotations. Even words for female animals become derogatory, as in b*tch.
A week ago, a creator by the name of Levi Coralynn, who has 2.7 million followers on Tiktok, and 1.2 million followers on Instagram, started a conversation about this exact topic. Coralynn, started the discussion with this idea:
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