Feminist?

Feminist?

Over the past few days I have been asking different people about the word feminist. When going into this project I didn't particularly have any specific expectations but as I thought more about the question I realized that this question of What is a Feminist? was quite interesting. I never really took a lot of time personally to inquire about this question because I always just sort of knew the basis of the term but asking and hearing others' interpretations of the definitions has been very enlightening.

I am going to tell you of some of the answers I received from this question turn discussion. One person responded with "Someone who believes in and fights for women's rights and believes in the women's movement and equality of man vs. women".

Another person said their idea of a feminist was "someone who is dedicated to the pursuit of issues that imply fairness, rights for women. To be acknowledged in ways that will make up for past slights. Fairness in the workplace, to be compensated in ways that's not disproportionate to how men are paid. It's a matter of degree, if someone wants to go beyond that". The final view that I would like to share with you is this, "A person who advocates equal rights for women including equal pay for jobs, equal access to opportunities, education etc. One who is very active in making sure that all women are included in the American way of life". Now from reading these can you tell who is the man, who is the woman, and who is the youngest? Should we even be able to?

One thing I must say that I found interesting was, that no one that I asked said a feminist is a woman whoÐ'.... That, to me was very good because I didn't encounter any serious stereotypes like the ones discussed in chapter one. I thought this question was very good, especially since I had never spent too much time pondering it. Also, I never really considered seriously how other people interpreted this word and this exercise woke me up to different ideas. In chapter one it discussed how the word of feminism is spread and it was funny that the answers I got covered a lot of those ideas and some people I spoke with also began talking about how women's movements had affected them personally in how they grew up and what they witnessed as a youth during the 30's through the present. They shared some