Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stop? Mom never told you?
Speaker 1: From housetop Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: This is Molly and I'm Kristen, and today christ and
Speaker 1: I are going to discuss what if feminist looks like?
Speaker 1: This has been UM sort of a hard topic to
Speaker 1: research because we can't find an answer right as we
Speaker 1: will discuss at length, um the definition of feminism is
Speaker 1: far ranging from positive to really negative. UM and Molly.
Speaker 1: When when we started talking about talking about and researching feminism,
Speaker 1: the first thing that I thought about was um Um,
Speaker 1: a publication geared towards women that's circulated throughout the Southeast,
Speaker 1: and I would pick it up every now and then
Speaker 1: because it was free. And at the end of every
Speaker 1: magazine they had this section, just one page that said
Speaker 1: I'm not a feminist, but dot dot dot, and each
Speaker 1: one would have, you know, some kind of sassy quote
Speaker 1: like I'm not a feminist, but I think men should
Speaker 1: do more grocery shopping. And it always kind of irked
Speaker 1: me a little bit because I didn't understand why there
Speaker 1: was a need to to say well, I'm not a feminist,
Speaker 1: but some kind of statement about gender equality, like why
Speaker 1: is it such a why is it such a bad label?
Speaker 1: Why should we be scared of it? I know it's
Speaker 1: That was really what struck out to me, And this
Speaker 1: research was that, you know, no one is willing to
Speaker 1: call themselves a feminist almost. It seems like that today,
Speaker 1: especially among women, younger women of our generation, maybe in
Speaker 1: their teens, early mid twenties. Yeah, I mean we think
Speaker 1: about old school feminists, someone like I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: want to say she's old school, but like Clarie Steinum
Speaker 1: in a good way, in a good way, very associated
Speaker 1: with sort of the historic feminist movement. She says that
Speaker 1: a feminist is anyone who coognizes the equality and full
Speaker 1: humanity of women and men. That's a nice definition. I mean,
Speaker 1: that shouldn't be a problem, I think, for anyone to
Speaker 1: apply to themselves. But then I was reading up on
Speaker 1: another lustrous figure also associated with empowering women, uh, Jerry
Speaker 1: halliwell of spice girl Face, spice girls. Not remember the
Speaker 1: Spice Girls were all about girl power. So that's sort
Speaker 1: of a way of you know, motivating girls to get
Speaker 1: equal with men, right, When Jerry Holliwell was asked by
Speaker 1: a British publication if she was a feminist, she said
Speaker 1: she associated feminism with broad burning lesbianism. She thought it
Speaker 1: was very unglamorous, it didn't celebrate anything feminine, and she
Speaker 1: thought it was really sort of demoralizing and emasculating towards men. Yikes.
Speaker 1: So I think that shows sort of um. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't want to draw direct lines between Gloria's Steinum
Speaker 1: and Jerry Halliwell, but you know, it's definitely a generational
Speaker 1: shift on whether feminist is a good term or that
Speaker 1: term right, And I think that those two definitions really
Speaker 1: show like the two ends of the spectrum. So to
Speaker 1: pull it back into the middle a little bit, because
Speaker 1: the discussion that Molly and I are having today isn't
Speaker 1: meant to convince anyone of feminism or that they should
Speaker 1: start calling themselves a feminist, but rather to talk about
Speaker 1: really what it is in today's world. So only the
Speaker 1: most neutral definition of feminists I could find was in
Speaker 1: Webster's Dictionary, And according to Old Webster, feminism is the
Speaker 1: theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the
Speaker 1: sexes and organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interest.
Speaker 1: It's a little closer to the Steinham definition, but I
Speaker 1: think that that's really I mean, you can't get more
Speaker 1: nutral than Webster, right, So there you go. But still,
Speaker 1: why won't women apply to themselves today? Do you think
Speaker 1: that just women today don't like labels? I think that
Speaker 1: you and I are in our in our mid twenties,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if you'd agree with this or not,
Speaker 1: but I would say that that our generation maybe shies
Speaker 1: away from using labels more than maybe older people do.
Speaker 1: There's a survey in the book the F Word Feminist
Speaker 1: in Jeopardy that asked three hundred uh self selected college
Speaker 1: educated women whether or not they they liked the term feminism,
Speaker 1: and six eight percent of them did not want to
Speaker 1: be confined by labels first of all, and found that
Speaker 1: the word feminism really chafed them the most. So maybe
Speaker 1: it's because of the political and social baggage that it has.
Speaker 1: It's possible, you know, I was reading in the article
Speaker 1: that you wrote how Feminism works that because something like
Speaker 1: feminism is associated with abortion rights, for example, that sort
Speaker 1: of scares away people who women who might be more
Speaker 1: conservative about social issues like that. But still believe in equality, right.
Speaker 1: I think. A perfect example of the politics surrounding feminism
Speaker 1: was the controversy around Sarah Palin, Alaska governor, calling herself
Speaker 1: a feminist in an interview with Katie Kuric. First, Kirk
Speaker 1: asked you whether or not she would consider herself a
Speaker 1: feminist and mother five governor when back to work, what
Speaker 1: two weeks after having her youngest child, called herself a feminist? Okay,
Speaker 1: at the same time, she is anti abortion, anti sex education,
Speaker 1: doesn't meet all of those, if you will, political qualifications
Speaker 1: usually ascribed a feminism, right. And then in a later
Speaker 1: interview she totally recanted and said she wasn't a feminist.
Speaker 1: I think because maybe you know, she got that sort
Speaker 1: of kicked back that you know, from both sides, how
Speaker 1: can you be a feminist? From both Republicans and Democrats
Speaker 1: are probably saying that to her. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: we had Barack Obama on the cover of Miss magazine
Speaker 1: saying he had a T shirt on he was staying
Speaker 1: like Superman. He said, this is what a feminist looks like.
Speaker 1: And this T shirt has become pretty famous the this
Speaker 1: is what a feminist looks like t shirt? Right, Molly.
Speaker 1: The this is what a Feminist looks like t shirt
Speaker 1: were first developed by the feminist majority that publishes Miss magazine,
Speaker 1: and they put out a video of men and women
Speaker 1: talking about, you know what feminism is, and this is
Speaker 1: what a feminist looks like, and its women of all
Speaker 1: different races, sizes, men, and I think the funniest one
Speaker 1: was a man who said that his wife called him
Speaker 1: a feminist and he said that he had to he
Speaker 1: had to go look it up first because he wasn't
Speaker 1: exactly sure exactly what she meant. Yeah, And this video
Speaker 1: got somewhat criticized because can you have people using the
Speaker 1: term that don't know what it means? Can you have
Speaker 1: people who just um, put feminism on like a T
Speaker 1: shirt and are all happy about it, but do they
Speaker 1: actually live out what it means? Um. It was sort
Speaker 1: of a glamour shot I think for a feminism and
Speaker 1: having all these celebrities talk about how, you know, they
Speaker 1: shaved their legs and were short skirts, but they're still feminists, right,
Speaker 1: They have good sex, they're attractive, like, don't be scared, girls,
Speaker 1: it's all for you. People will still like you if
Speaker 1: you're a feminist, and men too, like like Kristen brought
Speaker 1: up this guy who didn't even know what it means,
Speaker 1: but that Barack Obama cover had a lot of controversy
Speaker 1: around it. Can you have a man um who has
Speaker 1: sort of innate privilege in this society be a feminist
Speaker 1: and I don't think that. I think you'd be hard oppressed.
Speaker 1: Define many feminist who would say that absolutely not men
Speaker 1: cannot believe in the theory of feminism and gender equality,
Speaker 1: but some some just don't like for men to be
Speaker 1: able to share that label. There are some groups that
Speaker 1: simply refer to men who ascribe to feminist theory as
Speaker 1: pro feminists rather than feminists, sort of reserving that label
Speaker 1: for women specifically. Right, So let's consider of the women
Speaker 1: who use it today, what would second wave feminists think
Speaker 1: of them? When we think about sort of traditional feminists,
Speaker 1: what would they think of our feminist choices today. I
Speaker 1: think that there's been a big debate about, uh, whether
Speaker 1: or not feminism is still alive and well today, because
Speaker 1: it looks a lot different from the feminism of the
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies. Were still fighting for a lot of
Speaker 1: the same things, such as workplace equality and protection from
Speaker 1: violence against women. And reproductive rights, but we may be
Speaker 1: going about it in a different way. A couple of
Speaker 1: examples of what younger feminists today are doing that I
Speaker 1: can think of, just off the top of my head, UH,
Speaker 1: would be the Take Back the Night events that happened
Speaker 1: on campuses college campuses all over the country, and the
Speaker 1: March Woman's Lives. And the thing is, feminism today might
Speaker 1: look different from what was going on in the sixties
Speaker 1: and seventies, but I think a lot of what girls
Speaker 1: today are doing are really working to protect what second
Speaker 1: wave feminists one for us. I think you're right, Kristen,
Speaker 1: and I think that even choices that might seem to
Speaker 1: be counterintuitive to the things that those women one for
Speaker 1: us are still part of the feminist movement. Um. As
Speaker 1: an example, you know, more and more women are stay
Speaker 1: at home moms, and this might seem contradictory to what, uh,
Speaker 1: someone like Laura Steinham and Betty for Dan were trying
Speaker 1: to achieve, but the fact that they have the choice
Speaker 1: to do that is still at the center of the
Speaker 1: feminist movement right exactly. And I think that when we're
Speaker 1: talking about what if feminist looks like, can you answer
Speaker 1: it exactly? No? But I think that the thing you
Speaker 1: have to keep in mind is at the center of
Speaker 1: feminism and its broad range of definitions, positive, negative, whatever,
Speaker 1: it all boils down to choice, right, and so it
Speaker 1: was never um a proscriptive movement. It was never like
Speaker 1: you must go to work and you must you know,
Speaker 1: not shave your legs. But it's become associate with that.
Speaker 1: But the fact that it was about choice means that
Speaker 1: you basically have the choice to look into the mirror
Speaker 1: and say, this is what a feminist looks like. A
Speaker 1: feminist can, of course, like you said, shave her legs,
Speaker 1: wear high heels, wear pink dress, whatever she wants to do,
Speaker 1: whether that's at home or in the workplace, because that's
Speaker 1: what the first feminist one for us exactly. So al right, well,
Speaker 1: I think we slve that mystery, Kristen. If you want
Speaker 1: to learn more about feminism and its history, you can
Speaker 1: read How Feminists Works by well by me actually Larry
Speaker 1: Kristin on how stuff Works dot com. And if you
Speaker 1: have any questions our comments for me and Molly, you
Speaker 1: can email us at mom stuff at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com for moralness and thousands of other topics. Is
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com, brought to you by
Speaker 1: the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you