What would make someone a feminist?

A person who considers themselves a feminist is a feminist. Basically a feminist is one who believes in equal rights and legal protection for women. There is a huge focus on power differences, oppression, patriarchy, discrimination, stereotyping, and objectification. There is no one type of feminist. Feminism has had many waves, and currently has all different groups arguing all different things…

I’m certainly a feminist. A feminist is someone who believes in fairness and equality for women.

Funny thing is that the enemies of feminism have done such a good job vilifying the term that many young women now avoid the label. There are academic feminists like Andrea Dworkin who argue that due to our patriarchy that women are coerced into sex so all intercourse is tantamount to rape. Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon have lobbied for censorship of pornography; they have had little success in the US due to our constitutional protections but their work was cited to support censorship in Canada. Opponents of feminism often present fringe views like Dworkin and MacKinnon’s as mainstream feminist views to discredit the whole group. They have been quite effective because I hear young women say things like, I’m all for equality for women but I’m no feminist.

I like the following quote about feminism:

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat. Rebecca West