What does a feminist look like?

People have wildly divergent views of what a feminist is. Some eschew the label, while others adopt it readily. Why is feminist such a loaded word? Tune in to this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com to explore what feminism means today.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stop? Mom never told you?
From housetop Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
This is Molly and I'm Kristen, and today christ and

(00:20):
I are going to discuss what if feminist looks like?
This has been UM sort of a hard topic to
research because we can't find an answer right as we
will discuss at length, um the definition of feminism is
far ranging from positive to really negative. UM and Molly.

(00:41):
When when we started talking about talking about and researching feminism,
the first thing that I thought about was um Um,
a publication geared towards women that's circulated throughout the Southeast,
and I would pick it up every now and then
because it was free. And at the end of every
magazine they had this section, just one page that said

(01:04):
I'm not a feminist, but dot dot dot, and each
one would have, you know, some kind of sassy quote
like I'm not a feminist, but I think men should
do more grocery shopping. And it always kind of irked
me a little bit because I didn't understand why there
was a need to to say well, I'm not a feminist,
but some kind of statement about gender equality, like why

(01:27):
is it such a why is it such a bad label?
Why should we be scared of it? I know it's
That was really what struck out to me, And this
research was that, you know, no one is willing to
call themselves a feminist almost. It seems like that today,
especially among women, younger women of our generation, maybe in
their teens, early mid twenties. Yeah, I mean we think

(01:48):
about old school feminists, someone like I mean, I don't
want to say she's old school, but like Clarie Steinum
in a good way, in a good way, very associated
with sort of the historic feminist movement. She says that
a feminist is anyone who coognizes the equality and full
humanity of women and men. That's a nice definition. I mean,
that shouldn't be a problem, I think, for anyone to
apply to themselves. But then I was reading up on

(02:11):
another lustrous figure also associated with empowering women, uh, Jerry
halliwell of spice girl Face, spice girls. Not remember the
Spice Girls were all about girl power. So that's sort
of a way of you know, motivating girls to get
equal with men, right, When Jerry Holliwell was asked by
a British publication if she was a feminist, she said

(02:32):
she associated feminism with broad burning lesbianism. She thought it
was very unglamorous, it didn't celebrate anything feminine, and she
thought it was really sort of demoralizing and emasculating towards men. Yikes.
So I think that shows sort of um. I mean,
I don't want to draw direct lines between Gloria's Steinum
and Jerry Halliwell, but you know, it's definitely a generational

(02:53):
shift on whether feminist is a good term or that
term right, And I think that those two definitions really
show like the two ends of the spectrum. So to
pull it back into the middle a little bit, because
the discussion that Molly and I are having today isn't
meant to convince anyone of feminism or that they should
start calling themselves a feminist, but rather to talk about
really what it is in today's world. So only the

(03:16):
most neutral definition of feminists I could find was in
Webster's Dictionary, And according to Old Webster, feminism is the
theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the
sexes and organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interest.
It's a little closer to the Steinham definition, but I
think that that's really I mean, you can't get more
nutral than Webster, right, So there you go. But still,

(03:39):
why won't women apply to themselves today? Do you think
that just women today don't like labels? I think that
you and I are in our in our mid twenties,
and I don't know if you'd agree with this or not,
but I would say that that our generation maybe shies
away from using labels more than maybe older people do.
There's a survey in the book the F Word Feminist

(04:00):
in Jeopardy that asked three hundred uh self selected college
educated women whether or not they they liked the term feminism,
and six eight percent of them did not want to
be confined by labels first of all, and found that
the word feminism really chafed them the most. So maybe

(04:21):
it's because of the political and social baggage that it has.
It's possible, you know, I was reading in the article
that you wrote how Feminism works that because something like
feminism is associated with abortion rights, for example, that sort
of scares away people who women who might be more
conservative about social issues like that. But still believe in equality, right.
I think. A perfect example of the politics surrounding feminism

(04:45):
was the controversy around Sarah Palin, Alaska governor, calling herself
a feminist in an interview with Katie Kuric. First, Kirk
asked you whether or not she would consider herself a
feminist and mother five governor when back to work, what
two weeks after having her youngest child, called herself a feminist? Okay,

(05:05):
at the same time, she is anti abortion, anti sex education,
doesn't meet all of those, if you will, political qualifications
usually ascribed a feminism, right. And then in a later
interview she totally recanted and said she wasn't a feminist.
I think because maybe you know, she got that sort
of kicked back that you know, from both sides, how
can you be a feminist? From both Republicans and Democrats

(05:27):
are probably saying that to her. But at the same time,
we had Barack Obama on the cover of Miss magazine
saying he had a T shirt on he was staying
like Superman. He said, this is what a feminist looks like.
And this T shirt has become pretty famous the this
is what a feminist looks like t shirt? Right, Molly.
The this is what a Feminist looks like t shirt
were first developed by the feminist majority that publishes Miss magazine,

(05:50):
and they put out a video of men and women
talking about, you know what feminism is, and this is
what a feminist looks like, and its women of all
different races, sizes, men, and I think the funniest one
was a man who said that his wife called him
a feminist and he said that he had to he

(06:11):
had to go look it up first because he wasn't
exactly sure exactly what she meant. Yeah, And this video
got somewhat criticized because can you have people using the
term that don't know what it means? Can you have
people who just um, put feminism on like a T
shirt and are all happy about it, but do they
actually live out what it means? Um. It was sort
of a glamour shot I think for a feminism and

(06:32):
having all these celebrities talk about how, you know, they
shaved their legs and were short skirts, but they're still feminists, right,
They have good sex, they're attractive, like, don't be scared, girls,
it's all for you. People will still like you if
you're a feminist, and men too, like like Kristen brought
up this guy who didn't even know what it means,
but that Barack Obama cover had a lot of controversy
around it. Can you have a man um who has

(06:54):
sort of innate privilege in this society be a feminist
and I don't think that. I think you'd be hard oppressed.
Define many feminist who would say that absolutely not men
cannot believe in the theory of feminism and gender equality,
but some some just don't like for men to be
able to share that label. There are some groups that
simply refer to men who ascribe to feminist theory as

(07:18):
pro feminists rather than feminists, sort of reserving that label
for women specifically. Right, So let's consider of the women
who use it today, what would second wave feminists think
of them? When we think about sort of traditional feminists,
what would they think of our feminist choices today. I
think that there's been a big debate about, uh, whether

(07:39):
or not feminism is still alive and well today, because
it looks a lot different from the feminism of the
sixties and seventies. Were still fighting for a lot of
the same things, such as workplace equality and protection from
violence against women. And reproductive rights, but we may be
going about it in a different way. A couple of

(08:00):
examples of what younger feminists today are doing that I
can think of, just off the top of my head, UH,
would be the Take Back the Night events that happened
on campuses college campuses all over the country, and the
March Woman's Lives. And the thing is, feminism today might
look different from what was going on in the sixties

(08:20):
and seventies, but I think a lot of what girls
today are doing are really working to protect what second
wave feminists one for us. I think you're right, Kristen,
and I think that even choices that might seem to
be counterintuitive to the things that those women one for
us are still part of the feminist movement. Um. As
an example, you know, more and more women are stay

(08:43):
at home moms, and this might seem contradictory to what, uh,
someone like Laura Steinham and Betty for Dan were trying
to achieve, but the fact that they have the choice
to do that is still at the center of the
feminist movement right exactly. And I think that when we're
talking about what if feminist looks like, can you answer

(09:03):
it exactly? No? But I think that the thing you
have to keep in mind is at the center of
feminism and its broad range of definitions, positive, negative, whatever,
it all boils down to choice, right, and so it
was never um a proscriptive movement. It was never like
you must go to work and you must you know,
not shave your legs. But it's become associate with that.

(09:25):
But the fact that it was about choice means that
you basically have the choice to look into the mirror
and say, this is what a feminist looks like. A
feminist can, of course, like you said, shave her legs,
wear high heels, wear pink dress, whatever she wants to do,
whether that's at home or in the workplace, because that's
what the first feminist one for us exactly. So al right, well,

(09:45):
I think we slve that mystery, Kristen. If you want
to learn more about feminism and its history, you can
read How Feminists Works by well by me actually Larry
Kristin on how stuff Works dot com. And if you
have any questions our comments for me and Molly, you
can email us at mom stuff at how stuff works
dot com for moralness and thousands of other topics. Is

(10:11):
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