Title: Why Don't More People Call Themselves Feminists?
Headings: Why Don't More People Call Themselves Feminists?
Why Don't More People Call Themselves Feminists?
It's 2014, and lots of women (and men) are still wary of embracing the term.

Content: Sarah Jessica Parker is a "humanist"; Carrie Underwood thinks the word "can come off as a negative connotation"; Shailene Woodley also "loves men" and believes in "sisterhood more than feminism." On one hand, it's unclear why we care if celebrities are feminists or not, and in a country where many people harbor negative stereotypes about feminism, it may be a smarter career move for famous women — and it's almost always women who are being asked the question — to remain palatable by embracing a "girl power" ethos while rebuffing the word for it. On the other hand, every time a celebrity denies being a feminist or issues a qualifier — like Katy Perry's "I'm not a feminist, but I do believe in the strength of women" — it reinforces the myth that feminism is about hating men or that it's simply unattractive or uncool. Reluctance to use the F-word may be more about education and information than the word itself. When respondents to the 2013 poll were given the dictionary definition of feminist — "someone who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes" — 57 percent of respondents, including 67 percent of women and 47 percent of men, agreed that, yes, they were feminists. Education worked for me too. I stayed in my women's studies class until the end of the semester, and by then, not only had "feminist" lost its fear factor, but it felt tremendously disrespectful not to own a word that represented generations of struggle to set women on the path to equality. We know the usual markers of feminist success but not always the long haul that led to them: