What this chart indicates is that U.S adults are grossly uneducated about feminism. Once feminism was defined as, "someone who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes", those who identified with the term more than doubled!
This isn't an issue of education, this is an issue of framing. When provided with a basic "humanist" definition for feminism, the majority of Americas, independent of ideology are inclined to agree because they view equality of the sexes as the right thing. This idealized definition of the feminist movement, however, is not always expressed by feminists or perceived by the general public. Many people reject feminism not because they are against inequality, but because they are against specific programs or aspects of the feminist movement such as affirmative action, etc.
Whether or not people realize it, there are a lot of people out there who don't believe in equality of the sexes (benevolent sexism). In my opinion, today's feminist movement does abide by the "idealized definition". Many people who would agree with feminism reject it because they don't understand it and choose to only believe the stereotypes about it because they never learned about it(education).
Yes, there are certainly sexist and hateful individuals, just as there are radical feminists that espouse hateful remarks toward men. There are always extremes on both sides. While you believe the movement does abide by the definition, I respectfully disagree. I disagree not because I am uneducated about feminism, their beliefs, or issues, but rather because there are aspects of the movement that I disagree with and find to be more divisive than unitive.
Christian, the question is whether the distasteful "wing" of the feminist movement is the dominant part or just the part that is covered by the media. I'd suggest that, as usual, the media loves that which is sensational. Rational people (men and women) fighting for equality is so boring. Crazy women who want to abolish the letter e from the word women, well that there is some good news.
Actually Danni assuming that people are grossly uneducated about feminism is patently incorrect. The problem is that your question defines feminism and it is not representative of what feminism actually is. If you were to define the different types of feminism you would find your chart for equality feminism is accurate. The problem is there are so many sects of feminism that diverge from "your" simplified understanding that the pre-definition numbers are actually probably more accurate.
Puckshack makes a good point. Words evolve. Feminism doesn't have a "real" definition. It has many definitions. When defined in the way Danna reported, people liked it. You could do the same thing with conservative. Define it as modern day war mongers and I'm not interested. Define it as conserving the environment (something they used to be for) and suddenly I'm a conservative.
What this chart indicates is that U.S adults are grossly uneducated about feminism. Once feminism was defined as, "someone who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes", those who identified with the term more than doubled!
This isn't an issue of education, this is an issue of framing. When provided with a basic "humanist" definition for feminism, the majority of Americas, independent of ideology are inclined to agree because they view equality of the sexes as the right thing. This idealized definition of the feminist movement, however, is not always expressed by feminists or perceived by the general public. Many people reject feminism not because they are against inequality, but because they are against specific programs or aspects of the feminist movement such as affirmative action, etc.
Whether or not people realize it, there are a lot of people out there who don't believe in equality of the sexes (benevolent sexism). In my opinion, today's feminist movement does abide by the "idealized definition". Many people who would agree with feminism reject it because they don't understand it and choose to only believe the stereotypes about it because they never learned about it(education).
Yes, there are certainly sexist and hateful individuals, just as there are radical feminists that espouse hateful remarks toward men. There are always extremes on both sides. While you believe the movement does abide by the definition, I respectfully disagree. I disagree not because I am uneducated about feminism, their beliefs, or issues, but rather because there are aspects of the movement that I disagree with and find to be more divisive than unitive.
Christian, the question is whether the distasteful "wing" of the feminist movement is the dominant part or just the part that is covered by the media. I'd suggest that, as usual, the media loves that which is sensational. Rational people (men and women) fighting for equality is so boring. Crazy women who want to abolish the letter e from the word women, well that there is some good news.
Actually Danni assuming that people are grossly uneducated about feminism is patently incorrect. The problem is that your question defines feminism and it is not representative of what feminism actually is. If you were to define the different types of feminism you would find your chart for equality feminism is accurate. The problem is there are so many sects of feminism that diverge from "your" simplified understanding that the pre-definition numbers are actually probably more accurate.
Puckshack makes a good point. Words evolve. Feminism doesn't have a "real" definition. It has many definitions. When defined in the way Danna reported, people liked it. You could do the same thing with conservative. Define it as modern day war mongers and I'm not interested. Define it as conserving the environment (something they used to be for) and suddenly I'm a conservative.
Clearly, it would be so much easier if we could all just say we were for the equality of women.
Yeah. But who wants easy? ;)
Definitely not the media.
:)